Koninklijke Philips Corporation N.V.

Ajay Anand

Shriram Sethuraman

John Petruzzello

Rajendra Singh Sisodia

Sheng-Wen Huang

Balasundar Iyyavu Raju

Pallavi Vajinepalli

Shiwei Zhou

Celine Firtion

Lalit Gupta

Ramon Quido Erkamp

William Tao Shi

Nagaraju Bussa

Krishnamoorthy Palanisamy

Ganesan Ramachandran

Vikram Basawaraj Patil Okaly

Junbo Li

Francois Guy Gerard Marie Vignon

Shyam Bharat

Ameet Kumar Jain

Gosta J Ehnholm

Vijay Parthasarathy

Sushanth Govinahallisathyanarayana

Hua Xie

Ehsan Dehghan Marvast

Sandeep M Dalal

Shankar Mosur Venkatesan

Minnan Xu

Ladislav Jankovic

Yinan Chen

Balasundara I Raju

Weijia Lu

John Petruzello

Jianyi Zhong

David Savery

Sushanth Govinahalli Sathyanarayana

Robert Michael Staruch

A system for performing ablation includes an ablation device () configured to ablate tissue in accordance with control parameters and configured to make measurements during the ablation process. An imaging system () is configured to measure an elastographic related parameter to monitor ablation progress. A parameter estimation and monitoring module () is configured to receive the measurements from the ablation device and/or the elastographic related parameter to provide feedback to adaptively adjust imaging parameters of the imaging device at different times during an ablation process.

System and method for adaptive ablation and therapy based on elastography monitoring

A method for aligning spatially different subvolumes of ultrasonic data of a blood vessel comprising: acquiring temporally discrete signals of a blood vessel with elements of a two dimensional array of ultrasonic transducer elements from spatially different depths of scanning opposed by each transducer element, said array being located in a first position with respect to the blood vessel during the acquiring; Doppler processing the temporally discrete signals received from each transducer element to produce spectral Doppler data of the scanning depth opposed by each transducer element; producing a first three dimensional map of the spectral Doppler data in spatial relationship to the position of the array with respect to the blood vessel; acquiring temporally discrete signals of the blood vessel with elements of the two dimensional array of ultrasonic transducer elements from spatially different depths of scanning opposed by each transducer element, said array being located in a second position with respect to the blood vessel during the acquiring; Doppler processing the temporally discrete signals received from each transducer element to produce spectral Doppler data of the scanning depth opposed by each transducer element; producing a second three dimensional map of the spectral Doppler data in spatial relationship to the position of the array with respect to the blood vessel; aligning the first three dimensional map with the second three dimensional map on the basis of one or more regions of matching spectral Doppler data of the two map; and producing a combined three dimension map of the blood flow of the vessel from the aligned first and second three dimensional maps.

Method for aligning spatially different subvolumes of ultrasonic data of a blood vessel

The invention relates to a temperature distribution determination apparatus for determining a temperature distribution within an object (), while an energy application element () applies energy to the object, especially while an ablation procedure for ablating a tumor within an organ is performed. A time-dependent first ultrasound signal is generated for an ultrasound measurement region within the object and a temperature distribution within the object is determined based on the generated time-dependent first ultrasound signal and based on a position of the energy application element () relative to the ultrasound measurement region tracked over time. This can ensure that always the correct position of the energy application element, which may be regarded as being a heat source, is considered, even if the energy application element moves, for instance, due to a movement of the object. This can lead to a more accurate determination of the temperature distribution.

Temperature distribution determination apparatus

A medium of interest is interrogated according to ultrasound elastography imaging. A preliminary elasticity-spatial-map is formed. This map is calibrated against a reference elasticity-spatial-map that comprises an array () of different () elasticity values. The reference map is formed to be reflective of ultrasonic shear wave imaging of a reference medium. The reference medium is not, nor located at, the medium of interest, and may be homogeneous. Shear waves that are propagating in a medium are tracked by interrogating the medium. From tracking locations on opposite sides of an ablated-tissue border, propagation delay of a shear wave in the medium and of another shear wave are measured. The two shear waves result from respectively different pushes () that are separately issued. A processor decides, based on a function of the two delays, that the border crosses between the two locations. The calibrated map is dynamically updated and may include post-ablation border expansion () and time-annotated previous stages ().

Calibration of ultrasonic elasticity-based lesion-border mapping

A non-imaging diagnostic ultrasound system for carotid artery diagnosis has a two dimensional array probe () with a low element count and relatively large element size which can cover an area of the carotid artery at its bifurcation. The elements are operated independently with no phasing, and detect Doppler flow spatially beneath each element. The system produces maps of carotid blood flow in two or three dimensions and can assemble an extended view of the flow by matching segments of the carotid flow as the probe is moved over the vessel. Once the carotid artery has been localized, the degree of stenosis is assessed by automated measurements of peak systolic velocity and blood flow turbulence.

System for automated screening of carotid stenosis

A Doppler ultrasound instrument () includes ultrasound pulse control and data acquisition electronics () for acquiring Doppler ultrasound data, an N-channel connector port () for simultaneously operatively connecting up to N ultrasound transducer patches () where N is an integer equal to or greater than two, and an electronic processor () programmed to concurrently determine up to N blood flow velocities corresponding to up to N patches operatively connected to the N channel connector port. The blood flow velocity for each patch may be determined by: determining transducer blood flow velocities for ultrasound transducers () of a transducer array of the patch; and determining the blood flow velocity for the patch as a highest determined transducer blood flow velocity or as an aggregation of highest determined transducer blood flow velocities.

Multi-site concurrent ultrasound blood flow velocity measurement for continuous hemodynamic management

A diagnostic ultrasound system for carotid artery diagnosis has a two dimensional array probe with a low element count and relatively large element size which can cover an area of the carotid artery at its bifurcation. The elements are operated independently with no phasing, and detect Doppler flow spatially beneath each element. The system produces maps of carotid blood flow in two or three dimensions and can assemble an extended view of the flow by matching segments of the carotid flow as the probe is moved over the vessel. Once the carotid artery has been localized, the degree of stenosis is assessed by automated measurements of peak systolic velocity and blood flow turbulence.

Doppler ultrasound system for diagnosing carotid stenosis

The present invention relates to monitoring biological tissue during a delivery of energy. A probe-driving unit repeatedly drives an integrated push-and-track transducer unit, which is external to the control device, in repeatedly providing at least one ultrasonic push pulse () that is suitable for displacing biological tissue at a monitoring location (M), and in providing ultrasonic track pulses () suitable for detecting tissue displacement occurring in response to the push pulse at the monitoring location, and in detecting and delivering ultrasonic tissue-response signals (R) relating to the track pulses. An evaluation unit receives the tissue-response signals, determines in real time whether a normalized displacement quantity has reached a threshold value, and provides an output signal when the threshold value has been reached.

Normalized-displacement-difference-based approach for thermal lesion size control

A method includes generating a hyperthermia heat plan for tissue of interest, generating a hyperthermia adapted radiation therapy plan for the tissue of interest, controlling a heat source () to deliver heat to the tissue of interest according to the hyperthermia heat plan, and controlling a radiation source of a radiation therapy system () to deliver radiation to the tissue of interest according to the hyperthermia adapted radiation therapy plan. A system includes a radiation treatment planner () configured to generate a hyperthermia adapted radiation therapy plan for the tissue of interest, a radiation therapy system () configured to deliver radiation in accordance with the hyperthermia adapted radiation therapy plan, and a hyperthermia heat delivery system () configured to deliver heat in accordance with a hyperthermia plan.

Adaptive treatment planning for hyperthermia-enhanced radiation therapy

Dynamically identifying a stationary body of fluid () within a test volume by scanning within the volume can entail using a first part of a pulse sequence to acoustically interrogate a region within the volume to detect pre-existing movement () and, via a separate acoustic interrogation constituting the second part of the pulse sequence, acoustically interrogating the region to distinguish solid from fluid. The scanning is with both interrogations as a unit, so as to span the volume with the interrogations. The body is identified, dynamically based on an outcome of the interrogations. The scanning may span, for the identifying, a current field of view (), including normal tissue, within an imaging subject. The procedure, from scanning to identifying, may be performed automatically and without need for user intervention, although the user can optionally change the field of view to further search for stationary fluid.

Scanning to identify and delimit stationary fluid pools

The invention relates to a heat sink parameter determination apparatus for determining a parameter of a heat sink like a blood vessel within an object such as a person () by minimizing a deviation between a measured temperature distribution, which has preferentially been measured by ultrasound thermometry, and a modeled temperature distribution, wherein the modeled temperature distribution is modeled based on a provided heat source parameter like the location of an ablation needle () and the heat sink parameter to be determined by using a given thermal model. This determination of heat sink parameters, which may be geometric and/or flow parameters, considers the real temperature distribution and is thus based on real heat sink influences on the temperature distribution. This can lead to an improved determination of heat sink parameters and hence to a more accurate temperature distribution which may be determined based on the determined heat sink parameters.

Heat sink parameter determination apparatus

Disclosed is an ultrasound device for measuring blood flow velocity in a blood vessel of a subject without imaging functionality in the device. The measurement depends upon reflections of a collimated beam of ultrasound from a subject's body part. Received electrical signals representative of the reflected ultrasound energy is used for generating a representation of blood flow at a plurality of predetermined locations in the volume and calculating a first blood flow velocity at each of the locations. The representation of flow is used for delineating the blood flow in the blood vessel in the volume. An angle calculating unit calculates the Doppler angle between the direction of the radiated collimated beam in the delineated blood flow at each point. A velocity calculator calculates a second blood flow velocity at the plurality of points based on the calculated first velocities and the calculated angle at the point.

Method and apparatus for automated ultrasonic doppler angle and flow velocity estimation

Systems, devices, and associated methods including: emitting ultrasound to the subject and receiving, in response, a current ultrasound view; matching the received image to a pre-existing image, such as a three-dimensional reference image; and, for user assistance, generating, based on the matching, feedback for the guidance. The reference image may be a statistical atlas or it may be derived from patient-specific CT or MR scans. The pre-existing image may instead be a database image corresponding to a state in a state space. The feedback can be an image derived from the reference image; a graphic indication of a plane of the target view; the received view fused to an image derived from the reference image; or the received view and an image derived from the reference image, the derived image appearing concurrently and enhanced to spatially indicated where the received view registers to the reference image.

Ultrasound acquisition feedback guidance to a target view

An apparatus for deriving tissue temperature from thermal strain includes a thermal strain measuring module. The module uses ultrasound () to measure thermal strain in a region, within a subject, that surrounds a location () where a temperature sensor is disposed. Also included is a temperature measurement module configured for, via the sensor, measuring a temperature at the sensor while the sensor is inside the subject. Further included is a patient-specific thermal-strain-to-temperature-change proportionality calibration module. The calibration module is configured for calibrating (S) a coefficient and for doing so based on a measurement of a temperature parameter at that location derived from output of the temperature measurement module and on a measurement of thermal strain at that location obtained via the strain measuring module. The coefficient is usable, in conjunction with a thermal strain measurement derived from another location within the region, in evaluating (S), for that other location, another temperature parameter.

Patient-specific ultrasound thermal strain-to-temperature calibration

The invention relates to a temperature distribution measuring apparatus for measuring a temperature distribution within an object caused by heating the object. A temperature distribution measuring unit () measures the temperature distribution in a measurement region within the object, while the object is heated, and a temperature measurement control unit () controls the temperature distribution measuring unit such that the measurement region is modified depending on the measured temperature distribution, in order to measure different temperature distributions in different measurement regions. This allows, for example, modifying the measurement region depending on an actually measured temperature distribution such that in the modified new measurement region the measurement of the temperature of the object can be continued, if the temperature actually measured in the current measurement region is too high for being accurately measured, thereby extending the time period in which a temperature distribution of the object can be measured.

Growing community of inventors

Fishkill, NY, United States of America

Ajay Anand