Siemens Medical Solutions Usa, Inc.

Lei Sui

John I Jackson

Arun Palligaranai Tirumalai

Patrick Von Behren

Richard M Bennett

Xiaohui Hao

Xiangfang Li

Rushabh Modi

Kathryn Ozgun

Kalman filtering, including a model of system dynamics, is used to identify flash artifact. The Kalman filtering predicts the velocity or powers based on a past sequence of velocity or power. The prediction defines a confidence interval. Any current measures surpassing the confidence interval are identified as flash artifact and suppressed.

Kalman filtering for flash artifact suppression in ultrasound imaging

Dynamic steered spatial compounding is provided in ultrasound imaging. The compounding adjusts for variance. The compounding dynamically reacts to variance due to motion and/or view direction. For each location, the weights are set based on the motion or signal variance for the respective location. The weighting used for compounding or the results of the compounding adapt to maintain or increase signal fidelity.

Dynamic steered spatial compounding in ultrasound imaging

Jittering in medical diagnostic ultrasound imaging is reduced, such as in steered spatial compounding. A pattern of decorrelation is used to detect motion between component frames, register component frames, and/or reduce jitter in the motion correction. The ultrasound imaging adapts as a function of the pattern.

Reducing jittering in medical diagnostic ultrasound imaging

Ultrasound data is aligned spatially and temporally for volume rendering of a fetal heart or other cyclically moving object. A sequence of ultrasound data is obtained for each of a plurality of planes, such as acquiring data representing each plane over one or more cycles. The different planes are scanned sequentially in a step mode acquisition. The data is aligned temporally and spatially to create data representing volumes at different times throughout the cycle. The alignment uses similarity of the ultrasound data in time and space.

Spatial and temporal alignment for volume rendering in medical diagnostic ultrasound

The phase or associated amplitude analysis of a sequence of images is improved by, first, providing quantifications in response to the phase or amplitude information. For example, a value or values representing asynchrony between different locations through a sequence of images may provide useful diagnostic information. Second, since heart motion or other motion within a body may become complex, multiple harmonics may be used in addition to the first harmonic or fundamental information for parametrically imaging a motion. Third, where different portions of a cycle have different characteristics, such as the systolic phase and diastolic phase of a heart cycle, images associated with each of the portions may be separated from other portions. A phase or amplitude analysis of the sequence of images for each portion is handled separately.

Motion analysis improvements for medical diagnostic ultrasound

Automated analysis of ultrasound data is provided to extract event times, such as valve opening and closing times. Different types of ultrasound data, such as B-mode, M-mode, tissue velocity or flow velocity, are processed by a processor to identify automatically the event times. The event times are used for the processing of ultrasound data or to assist diagnosis. The event times may be used to estimate other event times in different heart cycles, such as with interpolation or extrapolation.

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Newcastle, WA, United States of America

Lei Sui