SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR THREE-DIMENSIONAL ULTRASOUND IMAGING

• US 20130158404A1
• Filed: 11/09/2012
• Published: 06/20/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 08/06/2007
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Orison Corporation
• Original Assignee: Orison Corporation
• Inventors: Towfiq, Farhad, Busse, Lawrence J., Douglas, Stephen J., Stribling, Mark L.
• Application Number:
  US13/673,987
• Publication Number:
  US 20130158404A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 600/447
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 2560/0475 Special features of memory means, e.g. removable memory cards
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7264 Classification of physiological signals or data, e.g. using neural networks, statistical classifiers, expert systems or fuzzy systems neural networks per se G06N3/00; expert systems per se G06N5/00
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/0825 for diagnosis of the breast, e.g. mammography
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/13 Tomography A61B8/10, A61B8/12 take precedence; tomography for radiation diagnosis A61B6/02
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/145 characterised by scanning multiple planes
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/406 using means for diagnosing suspended breasts
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/4461 Features of the scanning mechanism, e.g. for moving the transducer within the housing of the probe
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/4483 characterised by features of the ultrasound transducer
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/4494 characterised by the arrangement of the transducer elements devices for short-range imaging using particular transducer elements arrangements under G01S15/8909; arrangements of transducers in generation of mechanical vibrations of infrasonic, sonic or ultrasonic frequency B06B1/0607
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/483 involving the acquisition of a 3D volume of data
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/5207 involving processing of raw data to produce diagnostic data, e.g. for generating an image reconstruction G06T11/00
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/5253 combining overlapping images, e.g. spatial compounding
• CPC Class Codes: B06B 1/0629 Square array
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 15/892 the array being curvilinear
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 15/8925 the array being a two-dimensional transducer configuration, i.e. matrix or orthogonal linear arrays
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 15/894 by rotation about a single axis
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 15/8993 Three dimensional imaging systems
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/52046 Techniques for image enhancement involving transmitter or receiver image enhancement by image data processing G06T5/00
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: G10K 11/30 using refraction, e.g. acoustic lenses

Abstract

Under one aspect, an ultrasound system for producing a representation of an object includes: a concave transducer array configured to transmit ultrasonic pulses into the object and to receive ultrasonic pulses from the object, the ultrasonic pulses from the object containing structural information about the object, each transducer in the array generating an output signal representative of a portion of the structural information about the object; a multi-focal lens structure for focusing the transmitted ultrasonic pulses; a multiplexing structure in operable communication with the concave transducer array and including logic for coupling the output signals from at least one pair of transducers in the concave transducer array; and a beamformer in operable communication with the multiplexing structure and including logic for constructing a representation of structural information about the object based on the coupled output signals from the multiplexing structure.

Claims

1. An ultrasound system for producing a representation of an object, the system comprising:

a concave transducer array configured to transmit ultrasonic pulses into the object and to receive ultrasonic pulses from the object, wherein the ultrasonic pulses from the object contain structural information about the object, and wherein each transducer in the array generates an output signal representative of a portion of the structural information about the object;

a multi-focal lens structure for focusing the transmitted ultrasonic pulses;

a multiplexing structure in operable communication with the concave transducer array and including logic for coupling the output signals from at least one pair of transducers in the concave transducer array; and

a beamformer in operable communication with the multiplexing structure and including logic for constructing a representation of structural information about the object based on the coupled output signals from the multiplexing structure.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the concave transducer array comprises multiple rows of transducers.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the logic of the multiplexing structure includes instructions for varying at least one of a depth to which the ultrasonic pulses penetrate the object and an f-number of the array by uncoupling a subset of the transducers from the beamformer.

4. The system of claim 1, further comprising a dome configured to accept the object, wherein the concave transducer array is mounted over a slit in the dome.

5. The system of claim 4, further comprising a motor for rotating the concave transducer array about an axis of the dome, wherein the logic of the beamformer is configured to create image slices of the object located inside the dome as the motor rotates the array.

6. The system of claim 5, further comprising logic for assembling a three-dimensional representation of the object located inside the dome by combining the stored image slices.

7. The system of claim 4, wherein at least one of the multiplexing structure and the beamformer is mounted on the dome.

8. The system of claim 4, further comprising a probe housing, wherein the dome is constructed and arranged within the housing such that the object can be imaged without compression.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the object is a breast.

10. A method of producing a representation of an object, the method comprising:

transmitting ultrasonic pulses into the object with a concave transducer array;

focusing the ultrasonic pulses with a multi-focal lens structure coupled to the array;

receiving ultrasonic pulses from the object, the received ultrasonic pulses containing structural information about the object;

generating a plurality of output signals, each output signal representative of a portion of the structural information about the object;

multiplexing a subset of the output signals; and

obtaining a representation of structural information about the object based on the multiplexed subset of output signals.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising receiving ultrasonic pulses from a variety of angles about the object, obtaining image slices of the object based on the received ultrasonic pulses, and creating a three-dimensional rendering oldie object based on the image slices.

12. A concave ultrasonic transducer array, comprising:

a plurality of curvilinear transducer rows, each transducer row comprising at least one ultrasonic transducer element; and

a concave multi-focus lens coupled to the ultrasonic transducer elements.

13. The array of claim 12, wherein the concave multi-focus lens comprises a plurality of lens rows, one lens row coupled to each curvilinear transducer row.

14. The array of claim 13, wherein some of the lens rows have at least one of a different dimension and a different focal length than other of the lens rows.

15. The array of claim 12, wherein at least some of the transducer rows have a different dimension than other of the transducer rows.

16. The array of claim 12, wherein each row comprises between 100 and 1000 transducer elements.

17. The array of claim 12, wherein each row comprises between 300 and 600 transducer elements.

18-21. -21. (canceled)

22. A method of multiplexing signals from transducer elements in a concave transducer array, the method comprising:

turning on rows of transducer elements in the concave transducer array based on a desired elevational beam performance;

turning on columns of transducer elements in the concave transducer array based on a desired azimuthal beam performance; and

connecting the turned on rows and columns to a beamformer.