Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research

University of Minnesota

Mostafa Fatemi

Azra Alizad

Mahdi Bayat

Viksit Kumar

James Fowler Greenleaf

Marek Belohlavek

Shigao Chen

Ivan Z Nenadic

Alireza Nabavizadehrafsanjani

Seyed Siavash Ghavami Roudsari

Bae-Hyung Kim

Farid G Mitri

Mahdi Bayad

Rohit Nayak

Bojan Guzina

Juanjuan Gu

Redouane Ternifi

Egor Dontsov

Yinong Wang

Described here are systems and method for using ultrasound to localize a medical device to which an active ultrasound element that can transmits ultrasound energy is attached. Doppler signal data of the medical device are acquired while the active element is transmitting acoustic energy, and the Doppler signal data are processed to detect symmetric Doppler shifts associated with the active element. The systems and methods described in the present disclosure enable tracking and display of one or more locations on or associated with the medical device.

Systems and methods for localizing a medical device using symmetric doppler frequency shifts measured with ultrasound imaging

Described here are systems and methods for quantifying vessel features in non-contrast microvasculature images obtained with an ultrasound imaging system. Vessel features that are quantified include, but are not limited to, vessel structure features (e.g., number of vessels, vessel density, number of branch points), vessel diameter, and vessel tortuosity. Morphological filtering is used to generate vessel segments from which the quantitative vessel features can be reliably quantified.

Systems and methods for quantifying vessel features in ultrasound doppler images

Systems and methods for reconstructing, estimating, or otherwise generating unacquired, undetected, unreconstructed, or otherwise unknown ultrasound data using machine learning algorithms are provided. Thus, the systems and methods described in the present disclosure provide for generating unacquired, undetected, unreconstructed, or otherwise unknown data that are not actually and physically acquired with an ultrasound transducer and/or front-end receiver of an ultrasound system.

Systems and methods for generating and estimating unknown and unacquired ultrasound data

Described here are systems and methods for generating microvessel images from image data acquired with an ultrasound system while analyzing the image data in realtime, or retrospectively, to generate a performance descriptor that can be used to assess data quality and/or motion correction quality; to adaptively suppress noise in the data; or both.

Systems and methods for microvessel ultrasound imaging

The present disclosure addresses a quantitative analysis of tumor vascularity patterns, with the goal of identifying biomarkers correlated with malignancy. Herein, we identify new types of quantitative ultrasound biomarkers of microvessel morphology that correlate with the state of the disease in question. We propose a novel method to automatically extract quantitative features related to the morphology and distribution of the vascular networks reconstructed from contrast-free ultrasound data. For instance, spatial vascularity pattern, bifurcation angle, Murray's deviation, fractal dimension and closet vessel distance were clearly depicted.

Methods for extracting and quantifying diagnostic biomarkers from ultrasound microvessel images

Ultrasound systems and methods are provided using mass characterization frequency methods that provide for predicting benign or malignant lesions, a response to treatment, tumor grading, and/or the expressions of immunohistochemical biomarkers, which are currently used for breast cancer classification and hormone therapy determination. The systems and methods are based on the shear wave parameter, mass characteristic frequency. The status of malignancy, treatment response, grade, and/or each immunohistochemical biomarker may be determined based on a corresponding mass characteristic frequency threshold.

Ultrasound systems and methods using mass characteristic frequency

System and method configured to characterize viscoelasticity of a target medium by directly determining phase difference between real and imaginary parts of the complex shear modulus of the tissue (determined as a result of applying a compression force to the tissue), without any fitting of data and independent from distribution of strain in the tissue caused by the application of compression force.

Loss-angle-based determination of a medium viscoelastic parameter in sub-hertz frequency range with the use of local creep response

Methods and systems for producing a visually-perceived representation of a sub-millimeter-sized blood vessel located at a depth of many centimeters in the biological tissue, in which the background clutter is suppressed (by at least 30 dB using SVT and additional 23 dB using a combination of morphology filtering and vessel enhancement filtering) as compared to an image obtained with the use of a B-mode ultrasound imaging, while at the same time maintaining the morphology of the blood vessel.

System and method for visualization of tissue microvasculature using ultrasound

Systems and methods for localizing a medical device using symmetric Doppler frequency shifts measured with ultrasound imaging

Methodology, with a programmable-processor imaging system, for control and determination of breast lesion viscoelastic properties with the use of a creep-like test. Two dimensional reconstruction maps are used for different parameters of a linear viscoelastic model. Description of different aspects of the test used on live subjects and suitability of a 1-D inversion model in capturing different viscoelasticity parameters. An automated methodology for the selection of a region of interest derived only from the appearance of the breast lesion on pre-compressed B-mode images. Based on the ROI and estimated viscoelasticity parameters, contrast values are determined that facilitate the enhanced differentiation of breast mass. Employing the methodology in a large group of patients provides better understanding of variations of different viscoelasticity parameters in different types of breast lesion and helps to identify new biomarkers for enhanced differentiation of benign from malignant cases.

Automated time-domain determination of tissue viscoelasticity in a sub-hertz frequency range

System and method for visualization of tissue microvascular using ultrasound

Ultrasound system and method configured to locally determine a parameter of nonlinear tissue elasticity by monitoring shear wave propagating through the tissue. The shear wave is caused by an acoustic radiation force (ARF) which is applied to the tissue by ultrasound irradiation locally, in a focal region of the ultrasound beam and which is a function of the intensity of ultrasound irradiation, its time rate, and the featured nonlinearity parameter. The irradiation does not involve a quasi-static compression of the tissue, thereby permitting local estimation of nonlinear tissue elasticity and circumventing the need to solve the global inverse problem.

System and method for local estimation of nonlinear tissue elasticity with acoustic radiation force

A method and system for determining a velocity of a moving object such as a body or a stream. The object is irradiated in a non-collinear configuration with multiple ultrasound waves overlapping in a region-of-interest (ROI) of the object. An response wave, resulting from the non-linear interaction among the incident waves and the object, is detected and the frequency variations of the response wave are determined. Data representing a Doppler-shift of this frequency is further determined and processed to calculate the velocity of the moving object.

Method and apparatus for multiple-wave doppler velocity meter

System and method for determining viscoelasticity of curved tissue walls using ultrasound bladder vibrometry (UBV). The UBV is a non-invasive technique utilizing, in a specific case, a focused ultrasound radiation force to excite Lamb waves in a curved bladder wall and pulse-echo techniques to track the tissue deformation propagating through such curved wall. Cross-spectral analysis is used to calculate the wave velocity, which is directly related to the elastic properties of the bladder wall.

System and method for non-invasive determination of tissue wall viscoelasticity using ultrasound vibrometry

A method for measuring variations of the surface of an object using acoustic energy in the audio range is provided. Imaging fine surface roughness on the order of few microns is achievable by using a vibroacoustography technique. This technique provides a method for imaging surface roughness on the basis of an ultrasound radiation force that stimulates acoustic emissions at an ultrasound standing wave field. The present invention may be employed as a tool for the nondestructive inspection and imaging of the surface variations of an object.

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Rochester, MN, United States of America

Mostafa Fatemi