Koninklijke Philips Corporation N.v.

David Prater

Scott Holland Settlemier

Robert Joseph Schneider

William Robert Martin

Ivan Salgo

Stephen Watkins

Michael Daniel Cardinale

Karl E Thiele

Sheng-Wen Huang

Ramon Quido Erkamp

Irina Waechter-Stehle

George Anthony Brock-Fisher

Frank Michael Weber

Christian Buerger

Emil George Radulescu

Shougang Wang

Mary Kay Bianchi

Jean Margaret Williams

Lydia Rivera

Robin S Brooks

Francois Guy Gerard Marie Vignon

David W Clark

Patrick G Rafter

Darwin Philip Adams

Janice Frisa

Scott William Dianis

Kirthi Radhakrishnan

Roy Allan Sivley

Michael Cardinale

Jonathan Panek

Jimmy Li-Shin Su

Alexandra Goncalves

Aditya Periyapatna Nagendra

Larry Lingnan Liu

William Martin

An ultrasound imaging system may acquire ultrasound data from a heart. The ultrasound data may be analyzed to on-invasively provide a value for cardiac pressure, such as left ventricular end diastolic pressure (LVEDP). In some examples, the ultrasound data may be acquired from B-mode images, Doppler images, and/or strain measurements. In some examples, the ultrasound data may be acquired across an entire cardiac cycle of the heart. In some examples, the ultrasound data may include strain measurements and/or volume measurements of the left atrium. In some examples, the ultrasound data may be analyzed by a correlation algorithm, such as a partial least squares model and/or a neural network.

Systems and methods for non-invasive pressure measurements

An ultrasound imaging system has an improved dynamic range control which enables a user to reduce image haze with substantially no effect on bright tissue in the image and without increasing speckle variance. A dynamic range processor processes an input image to produce an approximation image which is a spatially low pass filtered version of the input image. The dynamic range of the approximation image is compressed, and image detail, unaffected by the compression, is added back to produce a dynamically compressed image for display.

Ultrasound imaging system with improved dynamic range control

An ultrasonic imaging system produces more diagnostic cardiac images of the left ventricle by plotting the longitudinal medial axis of the chamber between the apex and mitral valve plane as a curved line evenly spaced between the opposite walls of the myocardium. Transverse image planes are positioned orthogonal to the curved medial axis with control points positioned in the short axis view on lines evenly spaced around and emanating from the medial axis. If the short axis view is of an oval shaped chamber the transverse image is stretched to give the heart a more rounded appearance resulting in better positioning of editing control points.

Ultrasonic cardiac assessment of hearts with medial axis curvature and transverse eccentricity

A method for using an interactive visual guidance tool for an imaging acquisition and display configured for user navigation with respect to a blockage of a field of view detects, and spatially defines, the blockage. It also integrates, with the image for joint visualization, an indicium that visually represents the definition. The indicium is moved dynamically according to movement, relative to the blockage, of the field of view. The indicium can be shaped like a line segment, or two indicia can be joined in a 'V' shape to frame a region of non-blockage. The defining may be based on determining whether ultrasound beams in respective directions are blocked.

Rib blockage delineation in anatomically intelligent echocardiography

A 3D ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system produces 3D display images at a 3D frame rate of display which is equal to the acquisition rate of a 3D image dataset. The volumetric region being imaged is sparsely sub-sampled by separated scanning beams. Spatial locations between the beams are filled in with interpolated values or interleaved with acquired data values from other 3D scanning intervals depending upon the existence of motion in the image field. A plurality of different beam scanning patterns are used, different ones of which have different spatial locations where beams are located and beams are omitted. In a preferred embodiment the determination of motion and the consequent decision to use interpolated or interleaved data for display is determined on a pixel-by-pixel basis.

High volume rate 3D ultrasonic diagnostic imaging

An ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system has a user control by which a user positions the user's selection of a heart chamber border in relation to two myocardial boundaries identified by a deformable heart model. The user's border is positioned by a single degree of freedom control which positions the border as a function of a single user-determined value. This overcomes the vagaries of machine-drawn borders and their mixed acceptance by clinicians, who can now create repeatably-drawn borders and exchange the control value for use by others to obtain the same results.

Ultrasonic diagnosis of cardiac performance using heart model chamber segmentation with user control

An ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system and method enable the automatic acquisition of standard view planes of the heart in real time, such as the AP4, AP3, and AP2 views. A 3D image of the heart is acquired and the processed in conjunction with a geometrical heart model. The heart model is fitted to the heart in its acquired pose to segment the desired image planes from the 3D image data. During successive image acquisition intervals the image planes are tracked through successive image data as a multi-plane system to update a display of the multiple images. The successive image acquisitions can be volume image acquisitions or multi-plane acquisitions of just the tracked image planes during each acquisition interval.

Automated segmentation of tri-plane images for real time ultrasonic imaging

An ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system is gated to acquire images at different phases of a physiological cycle such as the heartbeat. At each successive heart cycle a trigger actuates the acquisition of a continuous sequence of images, starting at a particular phase of the heart cycle and ending when the next heart cycle begins. Multiple triggers are used, each starting at a different phase of the heart cycle and each acquiring images at uniform temporal spacing. After the first trigger is used a sequence of images has been captured which are temporally evenly spaced over the heart cycle, and as successive triggers are used uniform temporal spacing is maintained as the heart cycle is filled in with additional images for replay of an image loop of phase re-ordered images at a high frame rate of display.

Ultrasound imaging of fast-moving structures

An interactive visual guidance tool for an imaging acquisition and display system and configured for user navigation with respect to a blockage of a field of view () detects, and spatially defines, the blockage. It also integrates, with the image for joint visualization, an indicium () that visually represents the definition. The indicium is moved dynamically according to movement, relative to the blockage, of the field of view. The indicium can be shaped like a line segment, or two indicia () can be joined in a 'V' shape to frame a region of non-blockage. The defining maybe based on determining whether ultrasound beams in respective directions are blocked. Included, for deriving the image, in some embodiments are imaging channels for receiving image data for which a metric of coherence, i.e., similarity among channel data, is computed. The determination for a direction is based on the metric for locations in that direction. One application is navigating an ultrasound probe between blocking ribs () to achieve a standard cardiac view.

A 3D ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system produces 3D display images at a 3D frame rate of display which is equal to the acquisition rate of a 3D image dataset. The volumetric region being imaged is sparsely sub-sampled by separated scanning beams. Spatial locations between the beams are filled in with interpolated values or interleaved with acquired data values from other 3D scanning intervals depending upon the existence of motion in the image field. A plurality of different beam scanning patterns are used, different ones of which have different spatial locations where beams are located and beams are omitted. In a preferred embodiment the determination of motion and the consequent decision to use interpolated or interleaved data for display is determined on a pixel-by pixel basis.

An ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system and method enable the automatic acquisition of standard view planes of the heart in real time, such as the AP4, AP3, and AP2 views. A 3D image of the heart is acquired and the processed in conjunction with a geometrical heart model. The heart model is fitted to the heart in its acquired pose to segment the desired image planes from the 3D image data. During successive image acquisition intervals the image planes are tracked through successive image data as multi-plane system to update a display of the multiple images. The successive image acquisitions can be volume image acquisitions or multi-plane acquisitions of just the tracked image planes during each acquisition interval.

A 3D ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system produces 3D cardiac images at a 3D frame rate of display which is equal to the acquisition rate of a 3D image dataset. The volumetric cardiac region being imaged is sparsely sub-sampled by separated scanning beams. Spatial locations between the beams are filled in with interpolated values or interleaved with acquired data values from other 3D scanning intervals depending upon the existence of motion in the image field. A plurality of different beam scanning patterns are used, different ones of which have different spatial locations where beams are located and beams are omitted. A sequence of different beam scanline patterns may be continuously repeated, or the patterns of the sequence synchronized with the cardiac phases such that, over a sequence of N heartbeats, the same respective phase is scanned by N different scanline patterns.

High volume rate 3D ultrasonic diagnostic imaging of the heart

An ultrasonic diagnostic imaging method and system are described for detecting abnormalities in the synchronicity of heart wall stimulation. Points on opposite sides of a chamber of the heart are identified in a starting ultrasound image, then tracked through at least a portion of the heart cycle. The changing positions of lines extending between pairs of the points are accumulated and displayed in a color kinesis display in which each color depicts the location of a line at a particular point in the cardiac cycle. In an illustrated example the points are tracked through the cardiac cycle by speckle tracking of the speckle pattern of the adjacent myocardial tissue, tracking specific anatomy, or tracking tissue texture.

Ultrasonic diagnosis of myocardial synchronization

The method of the invention controls an ultrasound system to identify a boundary between a tissue region and a blood-filled region that lies within an ROI. The method initially administers a contrast agent to the region of interest and then transmits first and second ultrasound beams at a different power levels into the ROI. Signal returns from the first and second beams are processed to derive first and second digital values, respectively. It has been determined that, under certain circumstances, a phase change of echo returns occurs at the boundary between tissue and blood-containing contrast agent. Detection of the phase change enables precise identification of the boundary, based upon the time segment in which the phase change is detected. Accordingly, time segment values of the first and second stored digital values are then phase-compared to enable determination of a boundary location between the tissue region and the blood-filled region by detection of the phase change.

Growing community of inventors

Andover, MA, United States of America

David Prater