Finite amplitude distortion-based inhomogeneous pulse echo ultrasonic imaging
First Claim
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1. A method for reducing speckle in an ultrasound image, comprising the steps of:
- providing a biological tissue sample;
generating a transmit ultrasonic signal at a fundamental frequency;
directing the transmit signal into and along a propagation path in the sample, wherein the tissue distorts the transmit signal along the propagation path and thereby produces a distorted ultrasonic signal including a fundamental component at the fundamental frequency and harmonic components at second and higher order harmonic frequencies of the fundamental frequency, and further wherein the sample also reflects the distorted ultrasonic signal including said fundamental and harmonic components;
receiving the fundamental component and the harmonic components of the reflected distorted ultrasonic signal;
forming an ultrasound image of the biological tissue sample using the sum of the received fundamental component and the harmonic component at the second order harmonic frequency to reduce speckle in the image; and
displaying the formed image.
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Abstract
A method and system for imaging a sample. The method includes the steps of generating an ultrasonic signal, directing the signal into a sample, which signal is distorted and contains a first order and higher order component signals at first and higher frequencies respectively. The received distorted signal is processed, and an image is formed, and then displayed, from the sum of the first order and second order component signals of the received distorted signal.
54 Citations
8 Claims
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1. A method for reducing speckle in an ultrasound image, comprising the steps of:
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providing a biological tissue sample; generating a transmit ultrasonic signal at a fundamental frequency; directing the transmit signal into and along a propagation path in the sample, wherein the tissue distorts the transmit signal along the propagation path and thereby produces a distorted ultrasonic signal including a fundamental component at the fundamental frequency and harmonic components at second and higher order harmonic frequencies of the fundamental frequency, and further wherein the sample also reflects the distorted ultrasonic signal including said fundamental and harmonic components; receiving the fundamental component and the harmonic components of the reflected distorted ultrasonic signal; forming an ultrasound image of the biological tissue sample using the sum of the received fundamental component and the harmonic component at the second order harmonic frequency to reduce speckle in the image; and displaying the formed image. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4)
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5. A system for reducing speckle in an ultrasound image of a biological tissue sample, comprising:
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means for generating a transmit ultrasonic signal at a fundamental frequency and for directing the transmit signal into and along a propagation path in the sample, wherein the sample distorts the transmit signal along the propagation path and thereby produces a distorted ultrasonic signal including a fundamental component at the fundamental frequency and harmonic components at second and higher order harmonic frequencies of the fundamental frequency, and further wherein the sample also reflects the distorted ultrasonic signal including said fundamental and harmonic components; means for receiving the fundamental and harmonic components of the reflected distorted ultrasonic signal; means for forming an ultrasound image of the biological tissue sample using the sum of the received fundamental component and the harmonic component at the second order harmonic frequency to reduce speckle in the image; and means for displaying the formed image. - View Dependent Claims (6, 7, 8)
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Specification