Medical diagnostic ultrasound system using contrast pulse sequence imaging
First Claim
Patent Images
1. A method of medical diagnostic ultrasound pulsing comprising:
- firing a sequence of pulses into a body, where at least two pulses of the sequence have different amplitudes and phase, but no two pulses of the sequence have the same amplitude and opposite phase, and processing the received echoes to reject substantially linear echoes and maintain at least two nonlinear orders, at least one odd order and one even order.
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Abstract
A medical diagnostic ultrasound imaging method fires a sequence of pulses into a body and then receives, beamforms, weights and sums the resulting echo signals to suppress first order echoes. The sequence of pulses includes at least two pulses that differ in amplitude and phase. In one form, no two pulses of the sequence have the same amplitude and opposite phase. In another form, only linear echoes are suppressed. In a third form, second and third order echoes are preserved while linear echoes are suppressed.
88 Citations
52 Claims
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1. A method of medical diagnostic ultrasound pulsing comprising:
firing a sequence of pulses into a body, where at least two pulses of the sequence have different amplitudes and phase, but no two pulses of the sequence have the same amplitude and opposite phase, and processing the received echoes to reject substantially linear echoes and maintain at least two nonlinear orders, at least one odd order and one even order. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
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18. A method of medical ultrasonic processing data comprising:
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(a) firing a sequence of pulses into the body, wherein at least two pulses of the sequence have different amplitude and phase from each other;
(b) receiving ultrasound echoes from scatterers in the body in response to each pulse in said sequence;
(c) weighting and summing the received echoes such that only linear echoes from scatterers are significantly suppressed. - View Dependent Claims (19, 20, 21, 22, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33)
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23. A method of medical diagnostic ultrasound pulsing comprising:
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firing a sequence of pulses into a body along a scan line, where at least two pulses of the sequence have substantially the same amplitude and phase as each other, and at least two pulses of the sequence have different amplitudes from each other, and weighting received echoes responsive to each of the pulses of the sequence with weightings;
wherein a first result of a first multiplication of a first magnitude of a first pulse with a first weight applied to the received echoes responsive to the first pulse is unequal to a second result of a second multiplication of a second magnitude of a second pulse with a second weight applied to the received echoes responsive to the second pulse. - View Dependent Claims (24, 25, 26, 27, 28)
(b) receiving ultrasound echoes from scatterers in the body in response to each pulse in said sequence;
(c) weighting the received echoes with a receive weighting of 1, −
1, 1; and
(d) summing the weighted received echoes.
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34. A method of medical diagnostic ultrasound imaging comprising:
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(a) selecting (i) power levels for transmitting a sequence of ultrasound pulses into a body, and (ii) receive weights for applying to echoes received from scatterers in the body, such that the selected transmitted power levels and receive weights preserve echo information from at least second and third order scattering and suppress echo information from first order scattering;
(b) transmitting a sequence of ultrasound pulses into the body at the power levels selected in (a)(i);
(c) receiving echoes from scatterers in the body in response to each pulse in the sequence of pulses;
(d) applying the receive weights selected in (a)(ii) to the received echoes; and
(e) displaying an image based on the weighted receive echoes of (d). - View Dependent Claims (35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41)
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- 42. A method of medical diagnostic ultrasound pulsing comprising firing a sequence of pulses into a body, wherein at least two pulses of the sequence differ in amplitude, wherein at least two of the pulses of the sequence differ in phase, and wherein at least a first one of the pulses of the sequence comprises a coded pulse.
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43. A method of medical ultrasonic processing comprising firing a sequence of ultrasonic pulses into a body, wherein at least two of the pulses of the sequence differ in phase, wherein at least first and second ones of the pulses are coded with codes of respective lengths, and wherein the first pulse has a larger peak amplitude and a shorter code length than the second pulse.
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51. A method of medical ultrasonic processing data comprising:
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(a) firing a sequence of an even number of pulses into the body, wherein at least two pulses of the sequence differ in phase from each other;
(b) receiving ultrasound echoes from scatterers in the body in response to each pulse in said sequence;
(c) weighting and summing the received echoes such that only linear echoes from scatterers are significantly suppressed;
wherein (c) comprises using different receive weights for signals arising from transmitted pulses having difference phases.
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52. A method of medical diagnostic ultrasound processing comprising:
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firing a sequence of at least three pulses into a body along a scan line, where at least first and second pulses of the sequence of pulses have substantially the same magnitude and phase as each other, and a third pulse of the sequence of pulses has a different magnitude than the first and second pulses; and
weighting first, second and third received echo signals responsive to the first, second and third pulses, respectively, with weights that are substantially the same.
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Specification