ULTRASOUND IMAGING SYSTEM AND METHOD

• US 20190328361A1
• Filed: 04/27/2018
• Published: 10/31/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 04/27/2018
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: General Electric Company
• Original Assignee: General Electric Company
• Inventors: Halmann, Menachem, Owen, Cynthia, Lysyansky, Peter, Vardi, Mor, Shiran, Carmit
• Application Number:
  US15/965,121
• Publication Number:
  US 20190328361A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/08 Detecting organic movements or changes, e.g. tumours, cysts, swellings A61B8/02 - A61B8/06 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/085 for locating body or organic structures, e.g. tumours, calculi, blood vessels, nodules
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/4245 involving determining the position of the probe, e.g. with respect to an external reference frame or to the patient
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/4444 related to the probe
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/463 characterised by displaying multiple images or images and diagnostic data on one display composite display in devices for short-range imaging with acoustic waves G01S7/52074
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/469 for selection of a region of interest
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/523 for generating planar views from image data in a user selectable plane not corresponding to the acquisition plane
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/5284 involving retrospective matching to a physiological signal
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/10016 Video; Image sequence
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/10132 Ultrasound image
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/20021 Dividing image into blocks, subimages or windows
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30061 Lung
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 3/4038 Image mosaicing, e.g. composing plane images from plane sub-images
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/0012 Biomedical image inspection

Abstract

An ultrasound imaging system and method acquires ultrasound image data from moving an ultrasound probe over a body of a person, automatically divides the ultrasound image data into segments of interest based on where the ultrasound image data was acquired, and displays a panoramic view of the ultrasound image data that includes two or more of the segments of interest with at least one of the segments of interest displayed as a video.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

acquiring ultrasound image data from moving an ultrasound probe over a body of a person;

automatically dividing the ultrasound image data into segments of interest based on where the ultrasound image data was acquired; and

displaying a panoramic view of the ultrasound image data that includes two or more of the segments of interest with at least one of the segments of interest displayed as a video.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein displaying the panoramic view of the ultrasound image data includes displaying the at least one of the segments of interest as the video and at least one other segment of the segments of interest statically displayed as a frame of the ultrasound image data.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein displaying the panoramic view of the ultrasound image data includes displaying two or more of the segments of interest as videos.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

temporally synchronizing the ultrasound image data of the two or more segments of interest that are displayed as the videos in the panoramic view.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the ultrasound image data of the two or more segments of interest are temporally synchronized with a respiratory cycle of the person.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein temporally synchronizing the ultrasound image data for the two or more segments of interest includes temporally scaling the ultrasound image data for at least one of the segments of interest due to a change in the respiratory cycle of the patient.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the ultrasound image data is acquired while moving the ultrasound probe in a first direction and then in a different, second direction.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the ultrasound image data represents a lung and ribs of the person, and the segments of interest are inter-rib segments of interest located between the ribs of the person.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

measuring movement of pleura in the ultrasound image data; and

calculating a respiratory cycle timing of the patient based on the movement of the pleura that is measured in the ultrasound image data.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a movement indication that changes a graphical location of the ultrasound image data associated with one or more of the segments of interest; and

re-arranging locations of the one or more segments of interest associated with the graphical location that is changed in the panoramic view responsive to and based on receiving the movement indication.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

automatically examining frames of the ultrasound image data for at least one of the segments of interest to identify one or more regions of interest; and

automatically displaying the frames of the ultrasound image data having the one or more regions of interest that are identified in the panoramic view.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining one or more of a speed or a direction at which the ultrasound probe is moved over the person based on the ultrasound image data.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

displaying a notification to an operator of the ultrasound probe of one or more of the speed at which the ultrasound probe is moved being faster than an upper designated speed limit, the speed at which the ultrasound probe is moved being slower than a lower designated speed limit, or a change in the direction in which the ultrasound probe is moved over the person.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

displaying one or more graphical anatomical features with the video of the ultrasound image data in the panoramic view, the one or more graphical anatomical features representing locations of one or more anatomical bodies of the person of which the image data is acquired.

15. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining that the ultrasound probe has been moved and is no longer acquiring the ultrasound image data of a zone of interest within the body of the person; and

displaying an indicator that notifies an operator of the ultrasound probe that the ultrasound probe is no longer acquiring the ultrasound image data of the zone of interest.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the ultrasound image data shows ribs of the person, and further comprising:

determining a quality of detection of one or more of the ribs based on the ultrasound image data; and

displaying an indicator that notifies an operator of the ultrasound probe that the quality of detection is below a threshold based on a characteristic of the ultrasound image data showing a shadow of the one or more ribs or a spacing between two or more of the ribs being outside of a designated range.

17. A system comprising:

an ultrasound probe configured to acquire ultrasound image data while moving over a body of a person; and

one or more processors configured to automatically divide the ultrasound image data into segments of interest based on where the ultrasound image data was acquired, the one or more processors also configured to direct a display device to display a panoramic view of the ultrasound image data that includes two or more of the segments of interest with at least one of the segments of interest displayed as a video.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the one or more processors are configured to direct the display device to display the panoramic view of the ultrasound image data by displaying the at least one of the segments of interest as the video and at least one other segment of the segments of interest statically displayed as a frame of the ultrasound image data.

19. The system of claim 17, wherein the one or more processors are configured to direct the display device to display the panoramic view with two or more of the segments of interest as videos.

20. A method comprising:

acquiring ultrasound image data from longitudinally moving an ultrasound probe over a person;

automatically dividing the ultrasound image data into segments based on where the ultrasound image data is acquired in the person; and

displaying a panoramic view of the segments of the ultrasound image data, the panoramic view including at least one of the segments of the ultrasound image data displayed as a video.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein displaying the panoramic view includes displaying at least two of the segments of the ultrasound image data as videos.

22. The method of claim 20, wherein displaying the panoramic view includes also displaying at least one of the segments of the ultrasound image data as a static frame concurrent with displaying the at least one of the segments of the ultrasound image data as a video.