Ultrasonic blood vessel measurement apparatus and method
First Claim
1. A method for characterizing an aspect of a tissue structure present in an image, said method comprising:
- analyzing said image to identify said aspect of said tissue structure;
normalizing intensity information of said image by applying an adjustment factor to said intensity information, said adjustment factor being dependent upon known densities of one or more landmarks in a subject of said image;
determining density information for said aspect using said normalized intensity information; and
characterizing said aspect using said density information.
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Accused Products
Abstract
Disclosed are systems and methods for identifying various tissue structure aspects, such as boundaries of arterial walls, within an image, such as an ultrasound image. Various measurements may be made using information with respect to the identified aspects of tissue structure. For example, intima-media thickness measurements may be made. Additionally or alternatively, tissue structure aspects, such as plaque within an artery, may be characterized, such as by determining a density thereof. Various information, such as measurement datums, used in identification of aspects of tissue structure in one image may be stored and applied to subsequent images, such as images of a video sequence.
95 Citations
66 Claims
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1. A method for characterizing an aspect of a tissue structure present in an image, said method comprising:
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analyzing said image to identify said aspect of said tissue structure; normalizing intensity information of said image by applying an adjustment factor to said intensity information, said adjustment factor being dependent upon known densities of one or more landmarks in a subject of said image; determining density information for said aspect using said normalized intensity information; and characterizing said aspect using said density information. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29)
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30. A method for characterizing an aspect of a tissue structure present in an image, said method comprising:
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analyzing said image to identify said aspect of said tissue structure; determining density information for said aspect by applying an adjustment factor to intensity information associated with said image, said adjustment factor being dependent upon known densities of one or more landmarks in said image that have a relatively consistent density from image to image; and characterizing said aspect using said density information, said characterizing providing information with respect to a severity of a condition associated with said aspect of said tissue structure. - View Dependent Claims (31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50)
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51. A system for characterizing an aspect of a tissue structure present in an image, said system comprising:
a processor-based system accepting input of a digital representation of said image, said processor-based system including circuitry operable to normalize intensity information of said digital representation of said image by applying an adjustment factor to said intensity information, said adjustment factor being dependent upon known densities of one or more landmarks in said image that have a relatively consistent density across a plurality of image subjects, said processor-based system also including circuitry operable to identify said aspect of said tissue structure within said digital representation of said image, said processor-based system also including circuitry operable to determine density information with respect to said aspect of said tissue structure using said normalized intensity information, and said processor-based system also including circuitry operable to characterize said aspect of said tissue structure as a function of said density information. - View Dependent Claims (52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66)
Specification