Method and apparatus for ultrasound image quantification

• US 6,241,677 B1
• Filed: 01/06/2000
• Issued: 06/05/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 12/04/1996
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Acuson Corporation (Siemens AG)
• Original Assignee: Acuson Corporation (Siemens AG)
• Inventors: McCabe, Laurence S., Guracar, Ismayil M., Chandler, Paul E., Jackson, John I., Jain, Arvind, Allison, John W., Maslak, Samuel H.
• Primary Examiner(s): Lateef, Marvin M.
• Assistant Examiner(s): PATEL, MAULIN M
• Application Number:
  US09/478,662
• Time in Patent Office: 516 Days
• Field of Search: 600/447, 600/437, 600/455, 600/454, 600/449
• US Class Current: 600/453
• 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: G01S 15/895 characterised by the transmitted frequency spectrum
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 15/8979 Combined Doppler and pulse-echo imaging systems
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 15/8988 Colour Doppler imaging
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/52023 Details of receivers
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/52025 for pulse systems G01S7/52034 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/52034 Data rate converters
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/52038 involving non-linear properties of the propagation medium or of the reflective target
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/52063 Sector scan display
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/52071 Multicolour displays; using colour coding; Optimising colour or information content in displays, e.g. parametric imaging
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/52073 Production of cursor lines, markers or indicia by electronic means
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/52074 Composite displays, e.g. split-screen displays; Combination of multiple images or of images and alphanumeric tabular information

Abstract

A method and apparatus for quantifying and displaying ultrasound signals in an ultrasonic system are provided. A first signal value for each of at least one spatial location in a region of interest is acquired at a first time, and the signal values are summed to obtain a first surface integral value. A second signal value for each of said at least one spatial location in said region of interest is acquired at a second time, and the second signal values are summed to obtain a second surface integral value. The first surface integral value is summed with the second surface integral value to obtain a time based integral. The time based integral is displayed. Other quantities based on any of various ultrasound parameters, such as Doppler energy, Doppler velocity and B-mode intensity, are calculated and displayed as quantities or as waveforms as a function of time. Furthermore, various comparisons of quantities and waveforms are provided. Image plane data or other ultrasound data are used in the calculations. Finally, a histogram data structure is provided to aid calculation of the various quantities.

Claims

1. A method of providing flow quantity data by thresholding in an ultrasonic apparatus comprising the steps of:

acquiring a Doppler energy for each of multiple spatial locations in a region of interest at a first time;

acquiring a Doppler velocity for each of said multiple spatial locations in said region of interest at said first time;

applying a threshold to said Doppler energies based on the Doppler velocities to obtain remaining Doppler energies; and

summing said remaining Doppler energies.

2. The method of claim 1, said thresholding step comprising the steps of:

determining said threshold as a Doppler velocity cut-off value; and

setting the Doppler energy to zero for each of said multiple spatial locations where the Doppler velocity is below the Doppler velocity cut-off value.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising displaying said sum.

4. The method of claim 3, the step of displaying comprising the step of displaying a waveform of said sum as a function of time.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the steps of acquiring said Doppler energy for each of said multiple spatial locations in said region of interest at said first time and acquiring said Doppler velocity for each of said multiple spatial locations in said region of interest at said first time comprise acquiring values for each of multiple spatial locations in a volume region of interest.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of applying said threshold to said Doppler energies based on said Doppler velocities comprises applying a histogram.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of summing said remaining Doppler energies to obtain said sum comprises applying a histogram.

8. An ultrasound apparatus for providing flow quantities by applying a threshold comprising:

a buffer for storing Doppler energy and Doppler velocity data for each of multiple spatial locations in a region of interest;

a threshold value data;

a microprocessor for applying said threshold data to said Doppler velocity data to remove Doppler energy data associated with Doppler velocities below said threshold value data and for summing the remaining of said Doppler energy data.

9. The ultrasound apparatus of claim 8 further comprising a display device including display associated with said sum data.