HIGH FRAME RATE QUANTITATIVE DOPPLER FLOW IMAGING USING UNFOCUSED TRANSMIT BEAMS

• US 20090326379A1
• Filed: 06/24/2009
• Published: 12/31/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/26/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verasonics, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Verasonics, Inc.
• Inventors: Kaczdowski, Peter John, Daigle, Ronald Elvin
• Granted Patent: US 10,914,826 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 600/453
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/06 Measuring blood flow measuring volume flow in general G01F, e.g. G01F1/66, G01F1/72; measuring speed of fluids in general G01P5/00
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/13 Tomography A61B8/10, A61B8/12 take precedence; tomography for radiation diagnosis A61B6/02
• 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 15/8979 Combined Doppler and pulse-echo imaging systems
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 15/8984 Measuring the velocity vector
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 15/8995 Combining images from different aspect angles, e.g. spatial compounding
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/52028 using digital techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/52034 Data rate converters
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/52047 for elimination of side lobes or of grating lobes; for increasing resolving power
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/52085 Details related to the ultrasound signal acquisition, e.g. scan sequences control of medical diagnostic ultrasound devices A61B8/54

Abstract

An ultrasound imaging system with pixel oriented processing is provided in which a method of producing a Doppler velocity image is accomplished by emitting unfocused acoustic signals into a medium over substantially an entire field; receiving scattered and reflected ultrasonic signals on a transducer array in response to the emission; processing the received ultrasonic signals to extract information to construct a Doppler velocity signal corresponding to at least one point in the medium; and generating on a display device the Doppler velocity image from the processed Doppler velocity signal. Acquisition sequences and signal processing algorithms are described that provide improved quantification of fluid flow parameters, including improved discrimination between regions of blood flow and tissue. Very high frame rate Spectral Doppler and Vector Doppler acquisition modes for real-time and post-acquisition visualization over a large field of view are described.

Claims

1. A method of producing a Doppler velocity image, comprising:

emitting unfocused acoustic signals into a medium over substantially an entire field;

receiving scattered and reflected ultrasonic signals on a transducer array in response to the emission;

processing the received ultrasonic signals to extract information to construct a Doppler velocity signal corresponding to at least one point in the medium; and

generating on a display device the Doppler velocity image from the processed Doppler velocity signal.

2. An ultrasound processing method, comprising:

generating an unfocused acoustic signal;

receiving scattered and reflected echos of the unfocused acoustic signal at a plurality of receiving elements and obtaining a Doppler velocity echo signal therefrom;

mapping given pixels into a region of the Doppler velocity echo signals;

organizing the mapped region of the stored Doppler velocity echo signals into an array for the given pixels;

processing the array to generate a signal response for the given pixels; and

using the signal response to obtain Doppler velocity acoustic information for the given pixel.

3. The method of claim 2, comprising an initial step of generating a set of given pixels chosen to represent an area in a field of view of the transducer generating the Doppler velocity acoustic signal, in which every given pixel in the set has a known spatial relationship to the plurality of receiving elements.

4. A method of producing a spectral Doppler velocity image, comprising:

emitting unfocused acoustic signals into a medium over substantially an entire field;

receiving scattered and reflected ultrasonic signals on a transducer array in response to the emission;

processing the received ultrasonic signals to extract information to construct a Doppler velocity signal corresponding to at least one point in the medium; and

generating on a display device the Doppler velocity image from the processed Doppler velocity signal.