Imaging system

• US 20080294043A1
• Filed: 05/14/2008
• Published: 11/27/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 05/15/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: QT Imaging Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Biotex Pharma Investments, LLC
• Inventors: Johnson, Steven A., Borup, David T., Wiskin, James W.
• Granted Patent: US 8,246,543 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 600/437
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/0825 for diagnosis of the breast, e.g. mammography
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/15 Transmission-tomography
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/4477 using several separate ultrasound transducers or probes
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/4483 characterised by features of the ultrasound transducer
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/58 Testing, adjusting or calibrating the diagnostic device
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 15/8977 using special techniques for image reconstruction, e.g. FFT, geometrical transformations, spatial deconvolution, time deconvolution
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/52036 using analysis of echo signal for target characterisation

Abstract

Methods for imaging the internal structures of an object using an acoustic wave field are provided. In one aspect, for example, a method of imaging internals of a physical object using acoustic waves may include transmitting an acoustic wave field toward the object, receiving a resultant acoustic wave field with a receiver, where the resultant acoustic wave field is in response to the transmitted acoustic wave field reflected from or transmitted through the object, and determining a predicted resultant acoustic wave field derived from a model of the object. The method may also include determining a residual between the predicted resultant acoustic wave field and the resultant acoustic wave field, and back propagating the residual to determine corrections to the model of the object. In another aspect, the above recited steps may be further iterated to successively refine the model of the object over a number of iterations until a predefined condition is reached.

Claims

1. A method of imaging internals of a physical object using acoustic waves, comprising:

a) transmitting an acoustic wave field toward the object;

b) receiving a resultant acoustic wave field with a receiver, wherein the resultant acoustic wave field is in response to the transmitted acoustic wave field reflected from or transmitted through the object;

c) determining a predicted resultant acoustic wave field derived from a model of the object;

d) determining a residual between the predicted resultant acoustic wave field and the resultant acoustic wave field; and

e) back propagating the residual to determine corrections to the model of the object.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising iterating steps (a) through (e) to successively refine the model of the object over a number of iterations until a predefined condition is reached.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the object is a body part.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the object is a human breast.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the acoustic wave field has a frequency of between about 10 kHz and about 5 MHz.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the frequency of the acoustic wave is changed at least once between iterations of steps (a) through (e).

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the frequency of the acoustic wave is stepped over a plurality of predetermined frequency values.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising outputting an image derived from the model of the object.

9. The method of claim 2, wherein the predefined condition includes a magnitude of the residual being less than a predefined criterion.

10. The method of claim 2, wherein the predefined condition includes a change in the residual between iterations that is less than a predefined criterion.

11. The method of claim 2, wherein the predefined condition includes a rate of change in the residual between iterations that is less than a predefined criterion.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving the resultant acoustic wave field transmitted through the object; and

initializing the model of the object based on the resultant acoustic wave field.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein initializing the model of the object comprises:

defining a plurality of points on a computation grid to represent the object; and

initializing a speed parameter associated with each of the plurality of points based on transmission time delay between the acoustic wave field and the resultant acoustic wave field.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein initializing the model of the object comprises:

defining a plurality of points on a computation grid to represent the object; and

initializing an attenuation parameter associated with each of the plurality of points based on attenuation between the acoustic wave field and the resultant acoustic wave field.

15. The method of claim 1, comprising:

receiving the resultant acoustic wave field reflected from the object; and

initializing the model of the object based on the resultant acoustic wave field.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein initializing the model of the object comprises:

defining a plurality of points on a computation grid to represent the object; and

initializing a speed parameter associated with each of the plurality of points based on echo time delay between the acoustic wave field and the resultant acoustic wave field.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising blurring the model of the object.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein blurring the model of the object comprises performing a low pass filtering operation over the computation grid.

19. The method of claim 2, wherein the model of the object comprises a plurality of points on a computational grid.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein each of the plurality of points comprises a speed parameter to define a speed image.

21. The method of claim 19, wherein each of the plurality of points comprises an attenuation parameter to define an attenuation image.

22. The method of claim 19, wherein each of the plurality of points comprises a speed parameter to define a speed image and an attenuation parameter to define an attenuation image.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein back propagating the residual to determine corrections to the model of the object further includes holding the speed parameters constant while updating the attenuation parameters.

24. The method of claim 22, wherein back propagating the residual to determine corrections to the model of the object further includes holding the attenuation parameters constant while updating the speed parameters.

25. The method of claim 19, wherein the computational grid comprises a rectangular arrangement of the plurality of points.

26. The method of claim 19, wherein the computational grid comprises a rectangular arrangement of the plurality of points in a two-dimensional plane.

27. The method of claim 19, wherein the computational grid comprises a rectangular arrangement of the plurality of points in a three-dimensional space.

28. The method of claim 19, wherein the resolution of the computational grid varies as a function of the acoustic wave frequency.

29. The method of claim 19, wherein back propagating the residual to determine corrections to the model of the object further includes:

using a sub-sampled subset of points in the computational grid during a first subset of a number of iterations performed at a first acoustic wave frequency;

interpolating the sub-sampled subset of the computation grid to initialize points not in the sub-sampled subset; and

using the entire computational grid during a second subset of the iterations performed at a second acoustic wave frequency.

30. The method of claim 2, further comprising

determining an incident wave field when the object is not present;

and

dividing the resultant acoustic wave field by the incident wave field.

31. The method of claim 30, wherein determining the incident wave field further includes:

transmitting an acoustic wave field toward the receiver when the object is not present; and

receiving an incident acoustic wave field at the receiver in response to the acoustic wave field.

32. The method of claim 30, wherein determining an incident wave field further includes predicting an incident acoustic wave field received at the receiver in response to the acoustic wave field when the object is not present.

33. The method of claim 1, further comprising

tailoring the acoustic wave field to reduce field intensity in directions where the acoustic wave field does not pass through the object before reaching the receiver relative to field intensity in directions where the acoustic wave field does pass through the object before reaching the receiver.

34. The method of claim 33, wherein tailoring the acoustic wave field further includes tailoring the acoustic wave field to reduce field intensity in directions where the acoustic wave field passes through portions of the object having decreased tissue thickness relative to portions of the object having increased tissue thickness.

35. The method of claim 33, wherein tailoring the acoustic wave field further includes tailoring the acoustic wave field to reduce field intensity in directions where the acoustic wave field passes through portions of the object having reduced density relative to portions of the object having increased density.

36. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

applying a non-linear function to the resultant acoustic wave field to deemphasize portions of the resultant acoustic wave field that have bypassed the object.

37. The method of claim 36, wherein the non-linear function is a sigmoidal function.

38. The method of claim 1, wherein back propagating the residual to determine corrections to the model of the object comprises applying a minimum gradient support constraint.

39. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining a frequency gradient of the residual; and

adding a portion of the frequency gradient to the residual.

40. The method of claim 39, wherein the portion of the gradient is scaled by a scale factor.

41. The method of claim 40, wherein the scale factor is a constant.

42. The method of claim 40, wherein the scale factor is a function of an iteration sequence number.

43. The method of claim 1, wherein back propagating the residual to determine corrections to the model of the object comprises preconditioning the residual.

44. The method of claim 43, wherein preconditioning the residual comprises high-pass filtering the residual.

45. The method of claim 1, wherein back propagating the residual to determine corrections to the model of the object comprises constraining the model to preclude negative attenuation.

46. The method of claim 1, wherein back propagating the residual to determine corrections to the model of the object comprises constraining the model to preclude negative speed.

47. A method of imaging internals of a physical object using acoustic waves, comprising:

a) transmitting an acoustic wave field toward the object using a transmit array positioned at a transmit position;

b) receiving a resultant acoustic wave field reflected from or transmitted through the object in response to the acoustic wave field using a receive array positioned at a receive position;

c) determining a predicted resultant acoustic wave field derived from a model of the object;

d) determining a residual between the predicted resultant acoustic wave field and the resultant acoustic wave field;

e) back propagating the residual to determine corrections to the model of the object;

f) varying the transmit position and the receive position; and

g) iterating steps (a) through (f) to successively refine the model of the object over a number of iterations until a predefined condition is reached.

48. The method of claim 47, wherein the receive position is at a 180 degree azimuth angle to the transmit position relative to the object.

49. The method of claim 47, wherein the receive position is at a 90 degree azimuth angle to the transmit position relative to the object.

50. The method of claim 47, wherein varying the transmit position and the receive position comprises moving the transmit position and the receive position over a full 360 degree range of azimuth angles.

51. The method of claim 47, wherein varying the transmit position and the receive position further includes:

sequentially moving the transmit position and the receive position through a first range of azimuth angles; and

sequentially moving the transmit position and the receive position through a second range of azimuth angles separated from the first range of azimuth angles by a step angle.

52. The method of claim 51, wherein each of the first range and the second range are between about 5 degrees and about 15 degrees.

53. The method of claim 51, wherein:

moving the transmit position and the receive position through a first range of azimuth angles comprises stepping the transmit position and the receive position over a plurality of first angular positions; and

moving the transmit position and the receive position through a second range of azimuth angles comprises stepping the transmit position and the receive position over a plurality of second angular positions.

54. The method of claim 53 wherein:

the plurality of first angular positions are separated in azimuth angle by between about 0.5 degrees and about 5 degrees; and

the plurality of second angular positions are separated in azimuth angle by between about 0.5 degrees and about 5 degrees.

55. The method of claim 51, wherein the step angle is within the range of about 15 degrees and about 165 degrees.

56. The method of claim 51, further comprising generating a random or pseudo random step angle.