CN113229850A

CN113229850A - Ultrasonic pelvic floor imaging method and ultrasonic imaging system

Info

Publication number: CN113229850A
Application number: CN202110642554.1A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 张新玲; 丁鹏; 邹耀贤; 林穆清
Original assignee: Shenzhen Mindray Bio Medical Electronics Co Ltd; Third Affiliated Hospital Sun Yat Sen University
Current assignee: Shenzhen Mindray Bio Medical Electronics Co Ltd; Third Affiliated Hospital Sun Yat Sen University
Priority date: 2021-06-09
Filing date: 2021-06-09
Publication date: 2021-08-10

Abstract

An ultrasonic pelvic floor imaging method and an ultrasonic imaging system, the ultrasonic pelvic floor imaging method comprising: controlling an ultrasonic probe to emit ultrasonic waves to the pelvic floor of a measured object and receive echoes of the ultrasonic waves to obtain ultrasonic echo signals; carrying out signal processing on the ultrasonic echo signal to obtain ultrasonic volume data of the pelvic floor; extracting a standard pelvic floor sagittal plane based on ultrasonic volume data; determining a plurality of reference lines in a standard pelvic floor sagittal plane, and generating and displaying a plurality of corresponding standard pelvic floor fault sections according to the plurality of reference lines; and detecting whether the levator ani tearing areas exist in the standard pelvic floor fault sections, and marking the positions of the levator ani tearing areas in the standard pelvic floor fault sections with the levator ani tearing areas. The method automatically generates a plurality of standard pelvic floor fault sections, automatically identifies and displays the levator ani tearing area based on the standard pelvic floor fault sections, greatly reduces manual operation of a user, and improves efficiency and accuracy of ultrasonic examination.

Description

Ultrasonic pelvic floor imaging method and ultrasonic imaging system

Technical Field

The present application relates to the field of ultrasound imaging technology, and more particularly, to an ultrasound pelvic floor imaging method and an ultrasound imaging system.

Background

In modern medical image examination, the ultrasonic technology has become the examination means which has the widest application and the highest use frequency and is the fastest when a new technology is popularized and applied due to the advantages of high reliability, rapidness, convenience, real-time imaging, repeatable examination and the like. The application of the ultrasonic technology in clinical diagnosis and treatment is further promoted by the aid of the artificial intelligence auxiliary technology. The intelligent development of the ultrasonic equipment can help doctors to improve the examination efficiency, balance the difference of hospitals in different regions and provide more accurate diagnosis and personalized treatment schemes for patients.

Stress urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse are common chronic diseases affecting the physical and mental health of women, seriously affecting the working and social activities and physical and mental health of women, wherein the tear of levator ani muscle is often one of the main causes of the diseases. Ultrasonic examination of the pelvic floor plays an important role in diagnosis of pelvic floor diseases, examination is mainly performed on 3D/4D ultrasound through tomography in clinical practice at present, generally, a user needs to manually correct ultrasonic volume data of the pelvic floor, and then the torn positions are observed and marked one by one through section planes and measured. However, the female pelvic floor has a complex structure, and in order to obtain a standard tomographic section, the user usually needs to repeatedly perform rotational and translational adjustment, which is time-consuming and labor-consuming. Meanwhile, the identification of the levator ani muscle tear has certain clinical difficulty, the confirmation of the tear position highly depends on the experience of doctors, and the conditions of missed diagnosis and misdiagnosis are easy to occur.

Disclosure of Invention

In this summary, concepts in a simplified form are introduced that are further described in the detailed description. This summary of the application is not intended to identify key features or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter.

An aspect of an embodiment of the present invention provides an ultrasonic pelvic floor imaging method, including:

controlling an ultrasonic probe to emit ultrasonic waves to the pelvic floor of a measured object and receiving echoes of the ultrasonic waves to obtain ultrasonic echo signals;

performing signal processing on the ultrasonic echo signal to obtain ultrasonic volume data of the pelvic floor;

extracting a standard pelvic floor sagittal plane based on the ultrasound volume data;

determining a plurality of reference lines in the standard pelvic floor sagittal plane, and generating and displaying a plurality of corresponding standard pelvic floor fault sections according to the plurality of reference lines;

and detecting whether the anal levator tearing areas exist in the standard pelvic floor fault sections, and marking the positions of the anal levator tearing areas in the standard pelvic floor fault sections with the anal levator tearing areas.

In one embodiment, the determining a target location based on the ultrasound volume data comprises:

detecting a region of a target feature in the ultrasound volume data, the target feature comprising at least one of: levator ani fissure, angular points of anorectum, pubic ramus structures and anal canal structures;

and determining the rotation angle and/or translation distance required by the ultrasonic volume data according to the position of at least one region of the target feature, or determining the rotation angle and/or translation distance required by the ultrasonic volume data according to the relative position relationship between at least two regions of the target feature.

In one embodiment, the determining a target location based on the ultrasound volume data comprises: and inputting the ultrasonic volume data into a trained machine learning model, and outputting the angle of the ultrasonic volume data needing to be rotated and/or the distance of the ultrasonic volume data needing to be translated.

In one embodiment, the method further comprises: extracting a standard pelvic floor coronal plane and a standard pelvic floor cross section from the ultrasound volume data transformed to the target position; displaying the standard pelvic floor sagittal plane, the standard pelvic floor coronal plane, and the standard pelvic floor cross-section.

In one embodiment, the determining a plurality of reference lines in the standard pelvic floor sagittal plane comprises: detecting the area of the pubis united lower margin point and the area of the anorectal angular point in the standard pelvic floor sagittal plane; and taking a connecting line of the area of the pubis combined with the lower edge point and the area of the anorectal angular point as a first reference line, generating a plurality of second reference lines at equal intervals on two sides of the first reference line, and taking the first reference line and the second reference lines as the plurality of reference lines.

In one embodiment, the determining a plurality of reference lines in the standard pelvic floor sagittal plane comprises: and taking a horizontal central line of the sagittal plane of the standard pelvic floor as a first reference line, generating a plurality of second reference lines at equal intervals on two sides of the first reference line, and taking the first reference line and the second reference line as the plurality of reference lines.

In one embodiment, the detecting whether there is a levator ani tear region in the plurality of standard pelvic floor fault slices comprises: extracting the image characteristics of the standard basin bottom fault section; and classifying the image features, and determining whether an levator ani torn area exists in the standard pelvic floor fault section according to the classification result.

In one embodiment, the detecting whether there is a levator ani tear region in the plurality of standard pelvic floor fault slices comprises: detecting the area of the urethral orifice point in the standard pelvic floor fault section and the areas of the bilateral levator ani attachment points; acquiring the distance between the area of the urethral orifice point and the area of the levator ani attachment point; and if the distance exceeds a preset threshold value, determining that an levator ani torn area exists in the standard pelvic floor fault section.

In one embodiment, the method further comprises: and when the fact that the levator ani torn areas exist in the standard pelvic floor fault section is determined, displaying the distance between the area of the urethral orifice point and the areas of the attachment points of the levator ani on the two sides.

In one embodiment, the method further comprises: when the levator ani tearing region is determined to exist in the standard pelvic floor fault section, generating and displaying a sagittal plane, a coronal plane and/or a cross section of the levator ani tearing region.

In one embodiment, when it is determined that there is an levator ani tear region in the standard pelvic floor fault section, the method further comprises: determining a first target reference line corresponding to a standard pelvic floor fault section with an levator ani torn area in the plurality of reference lines; generating a plurality of second target reference lines in the standard pelvic floor sagittal plane based on the first target reference line; and generating and displaying a plurality of fault sections based on the plurality of second target reference lines.

In one embodiment, the method further comprises: adjusting the position of the indicia of the levator ani tear area according to the received user instruction.

In another aspect, an embodiment of the present invention provides an ultrasonic pelvic floor imaging method, including:

determining a target location based on the ultrasound volume data and transforming the ultrasound volume data to the target location;

extracting a standard pelvic floor sagittal plane from the ultrasonic volume data transformed to the target position;

determining a plurality of reference lines in the standard pelvic floor sagittal plane, and generating a plurality of corresponding standard pelvic floor fault sections according to the plurality of reference lines;

detecting whether an levator ani torn area exists in the standard pelvic floor fault sections;

and displaying a standard pelvic floor fault section with the levator ani tearing area, and marking the position of the levator ani tearing area in the standard pelvic floor fault section with the levator ani tearing area.

In another aspect, an embodiment of the present invention provides an ultrasound imaging system, including:

an ultrasonic probe;

the transmitting circuit is used for exciting the ultrasonic probe to transmit ultrasonic waves to the pelvic floor of the measured object;

the receiving circuit is used for controlling the ultrasonic probe to receive the echo of the ultrasonic wave so as to obtain an ultrasonic echo signal;

a processor for performing the steps of the ultrasound pelvic floor imaging method as described above;

and the display is used for displaying the ultrasonic image obtained by the processor.

The ultrasonic imaging system and the ultrasonic pelvic floor imaging method provided by the embodiment of the invention can automatically generate a plurality of standard pelvic floor fault sections, automatically identify and display the levator ani tearing area based on the plurality of standard pelvic floor fault sections, greatly reduce manual operation of a user, and improve efficiency and accuracy of levator ani tearing inspection.

Drawings

The above and other objects, features and advantages of the present application will become more apparent by describing in more detail embodiments of the present invention with reference to the attached drawings. The accompanying drawings are included to provide a further understanding of the embodiments of the invention and are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate embodiments of the invention and together with the description serve to explain the principles of the invention and not to limit the invention. In the drawings, like reference numbers generally represent like parts or steps.

FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of an ultrasound imaging system according to one embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 2 shows a schematic flow diagram of an ultrasonic pelvic floor imaging method according to an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 3 shows a schematic representation of a standard pelvic floor sagittal plane, a standard pelvic floor coronal plane, and a standard pelvic floor cross-section, in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 4 shows a schematic diagram of a plurality of reference lines generated in a standard pelvic floor sagittal plane, according to one embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 5 illustrates a schematic diagram of a plurality of standard pelvic floor fault slices generated from the reference lines shown in FIG. 4, according to one embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 6 shows a schematic view of a marker for a levator ani tear area according to one embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 7 shows a schematic view of a marker for a levator ani tear area according to another embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 8 shows a schematic flow diagram of an ultrasonic pelvic floor imaging method according to another embodiment of the invention.

Detailed Description

In order to make the objects, technical solutions and advantages of the present application more apparent, exemplary embodiments according to the present application will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. It should be understood that the described embodiments are only some embodiments of the present application and not all embodiments of the present application, and that the present application is not limited by the example embodiments described herein. All other embodiments, which can be derived by a person skilled in the art from the embodiments of the invention described in the present application without inventive step, shall fall within the scope of protection of the present application.

In the following description, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a more thorough understanding of the present application. It will be apparent, however, to one skilled in the art, that the present application may be practiced without one or more of these specific details. In other instances, well-known features of the art have not been described in order to avoid obscuring the present application.

It is to be understood that the present application is capable of implementation in various forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein. Rather, these embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the scope of the application to those skilled in the art.

The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of the application. As used herein, the singular forms "a", "an" and "the" are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will be further understood that the terms "comprises" and/or "comprising," when used in this specification, specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps, operations, elements, and/or components, but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, operations, elements, components, and/or groups thereof. As used herein, the term "and/or" includes any and all combinations of the associated listed items.

In order to provide a thorough understanding of the present application, a detailed structure will be presented in the following description in order to explain the technical solutions presented in the present application. Alternative embodiments of the present application are described in detail below, however, the present application may have other implementations in addition to these detailed descriptions.

In the following, an ultrasound imaging system according to an embodiment of the present application is first described with reference to fig. 1, and fig. 1 shows a schematic block diagram of an ultrasound imaging system 100 according to an embodiment of the present invention.

As shown in fig. 1, the ultrasound imaging system 100 includes an ultrasound probe 110, transmit circuitry 112, receive circuitry 114, a processor 116, and a display 118. Further, the ultrasound imaging system may further include a transmit/receive selection switch 120 and a beam forming module 122, and the transmit circuit 112 and the receive circuit 114 may be connected to the ultrasound probe 110 through the transmit/receive selection switch 120.

The ultrasound probe 110 includes a plurality of transducer elements, which may be arranged in a line to form a linear array, or in a two-dimensional matrix to form an area array, or in a convex array. The transducer elements are used for transmitting ultrasonic waves according to the excitation electric signals or converting the received ultrasonic waves into electric signals, so that each transducer element can be used for realizing the mutual conversion of the electric pulse signals and the ultrasonic waves, thereby realizing the transmission of the ultrasonic waves to tissues of a target area of a measured object and also receiving ultrasonic wave echoes reflected back by the tissues. In ultrasound detection, which transducer elements are used for transmitting ultrasound waves and which transducer elements are used for receiving ultrasound waves can be controlled by a transmitting sequence and a receiving sequence, or the transducer elements are controlled to be time-slotted for transmitting ultrasound waves or receiving echoes of ultrasound waves. The transducer elements participating in the ultrasonic wave transmission can be simultaneously excited by the electric signals, so that the ultrasonic waves are transmitted simultaneously; alternatively, the transducer elements participating in the ultrasound beam transmission may be excited by several electrical signals with a certain time interval, so as to continuously transmit ultrasound waves with a certain time interval.

During ultrasound imaging, the processor 116 controls the transmit circuitry 112 to send the delay focused transmit pulses to the ultrasound probe 110 through the transmit/receive select switch 120. The ultrasonic probe 110 is excited by the transmission pulse to transmit an ultrasonic beam to the tissue of the target region of the object to be measured, receives an ultrasonic echo with tissue information reflected from the tissue of the target region after a certain time delay, and converts the ultrasonic echo back into an electrical signal again. The receiving circuit 114 receives the electrical signals generated by the ultrasound probe 110, obtains ultrasound echo signals, and sends the ultrasound echo signals to the beam forming module 122, and the beam forming module 122 performs processing such as focusing delay, weighting, and channel summation on the ultrasound echo data, and then sends the ultrasound echo data to the processor 116. The processor 116 performs signal detection, signal enhancement, data conversion, logarithmic compression, and the like on the ultrasonic echo signal to form an ultrasonic image. The ultrasound images obtained by the processor 116 may be displayed on the display 118 or may be stored in the memory 124.

Alternatively, the processor 116 may be implemented as software, hardware, firmware, or any combination thereof, and may use single or multiple Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), single or multiple general purpose Integrated circuits, single or multiple microprocessors, single or multiple programmable logic devices, or any combination of the preceding, or other suitable circuits or devices. Also, the processor 116 may control other components in the ultrasound imaging system 100 to perform the respective steps of the methods in the various embodiments herein.

The display 118 is connected with the processor 116, and the display 118 may be a touch display screen, a liquid crystal display screen, or the like; alternatively, the display 118 may be a separate display, such as a liquid crystal display, a television, or the like, separate from the ultrasound imaging system 100; alternatively, the display 118 may be a display screen of an electronic device such as a smartphone, tablet, etc. The number of the displays 118 may be one or more.

The display 118 may display the ultrasound image obtained by the processor 116. In addition, the display 118 can provide a graphical interface for human-computer interaction for the user while displaying the ultrasound image, and one or more controlled objects are arranged on the graphical interface, so that the user can input operation instructions by using the human-computer interaction device to control the controlled objects, thereby executing corresponding control operation. For example, an icon is displayed on the graphical interface, and the icon can be operated by the man-machine interaction device to execute a specific function, such as drawing a region-of-interest box on the ultrasonic image.

Optionally, the ultrasound imaging system 100 may further include a human-computer interaction device other than the display 118, which is connected to the processor 116, for example, the processor 116 may be connected to the human-computer interaction device through an external input/output port, which may be a wireless communication module, a wired communication module, or a combination thereof. The external input/output port may also be implemented based on USB, bus protocols such as CAN, and/or wired network protocols, etc.

The human-computer interaction device may include an input device for detecting input information of a user, for example, control instructions for the transmission/reception timing of the ultrasonic waves, operation input instructions for drawing points, lines, frames, or the like on the ultrasonic images, or other instruction types. The input device may include one or more of a keyboard, mouse, scroll wheel, trackball, mobile input device (e.g., mobile device with touch screen display, cell phone, etc.), multi-function knob, and the like. The human-computer interaction device may also include an output device such as a printer.

The ultrasound imaging system 100 may also include a memory 124 for storing instructions executed by the processor, storing received ultrasound echoes, storing ultrasound images, and so forth. The memory may be a flash memory card, solid state memory, hard disk, etc. Which may be volatile memory and/or non-volatile memory, removable memory and/or non-removable memory, etc.

It should be understood that the components included in the ultrasound imaging system 100 shown in fig. 1 are merely illustrative and that more or fewer components may be included. This is not limited by the present application.

Next, an ultrasonic pelvic floor imaging method according to an embodiment of the present application will be described with reference to fig. 2. FIG. 2 is a schematic flow chart diagram of an ultrasonic pelvic floor imaging method 200 in an embodiment of the application.

As shown in fig. 2, an ultrasound pelvic floor imaging method 200 according to an embodiment of the present application includes the following steps:

in step S210, controlling an ultrasonic probe to emit an ultrasonic wave to the pelvic floor of a measured object and receive an echo of the ultrasonic wave to obtain an ultrasonic echo signal;

in step S220, performing signal processing on the ultrasonic echo signal to obtain ultrasonic volume data of the pelvic floor;

in step S230, a standard pelvic floor sagittal plane is extracted based on the ultrasound volume data;

in step S240, determining a plurality of reference lines in the standard pelvic floor sagittal plane, and generating and displaying a plurality of corresponding standard pelvic floor fault sections according to the plurality of reference lines;

in step S250, whether there is a levator ani torn region in the standard pelvic floor tomographic sections is detected, and a position of the levator ani torn region is marked in the standard pelvic floor tomographic section in which the levator ani torn region exists.

The ultrasonic pelvic floor imaging method 200 can automatically generate a plurality of standard pelvic floor fault sections, automatically identify and display the levator ani tearing area based on the standard pelvic floor fault sections, greatly reduce manual operation of a user, and improve efficiency and accuracy of levator ani tearing examination.

Illustratively, in step S210, an ultrasound scan may be performed based on the ultrasound imaging system 100 shown in fig. 1. Specifically, the clinician can move the ultrasound probe 110 to select an appropriate position and angle for performing a three-dimensional/four-dimensional ultrasound scan using a volumetric probe over the labia of the female subject. During a scan, transmit circuitry 112 sends a set of delay-focused transmit pulses to ultrasound probe 110 to excite ultrasound probe 110 to transmit ultrasound waves along a two-dimensional scan plane toward the pelvic floor of the subject. The receiving circuit 114 controls the ultrasonic probe 110 to receive the ultrasonic echo reflected by the pelvic floor of the object to be measured, and then converts the ultrasonic echo into an electrical signal, the beam forming module 112 performs corresponding delay and weighted summation processing on the ultrasonic echo signal obtained by multiple times of transmission and reception, so as to realize beam forming, and then the ultrasonic echo signal is sent to the processor 116 for subsequent signal processing.

In step S220, ultrasound volume data of the pelvic floor of the object to be measured may be obtained by the processor 116 of the ultrasound imaging system based on the echo signal of the received ultrasound wave, and the ultrasound volume data may include three-dimensional ultrasound data or four-dimensional ultrasound data, i.e., three-dimensional ultrasound video data composed of consecutive volumes of three-dimensional ultrasound data. Illustratively, with continued reference to fig. 1, the processor 116 may integrate the three-dimensional spatial relationship of the ultrasound echo signals scanned by the ultrasound probe 110 in a series of scan planes, thereby achieving the scanning of the pelvic floor in three-dimensional space and the reconstruction of three-dimensional ultrasound data. And finally, after partial or all image post-processing steps such as denoising, smoothing, enhancing and the like, obtaining ultrasonic volume data of the pelvic floor of the measured object.

In step S230, a standard pelvic floor sagittal plane is extracted based on the ultrasound volume data. In particular, a standard pelvic floor sagittal plane, i.e., the median sagittal plane of the pelvic floor, may be extracted by the processor 116 of the ultrasound imaging system based on the ultrasound volume data.

In one embodiment, to obtain a standard pelvic floor sagittal plane, the ultrasound volume data is first automatically aligned, i.e., the target position is determined based on the ultrasound volume data, and the ultrasound volume data is transformed to the target position. Then, a standard pelvic floor sagittal plane is extracted from the ultrasound volume data transformed to the target position. The purpose of automatic putting is that the position of ultrasonic volume data aligns with the position of drawing of tangent plane, is convenient for draw standard tangent plane from ultrasonic volume data to can also show the position of being convenient for observe with the position of user's interests such as levator ani muscle fissure hole, pubic ramus structure, anal canal structure, need not that the user is manual to be rotated, improve pelvic floor ultrasonic examination's efficiency and accuracy.

As an alternative implementation, determining the target position based on the ultrasound volume data may include: detecting a region of a target feature in ultrasonic volume data, and determining an angle of rotation and/or a distance of translation required by the ultrasonic volume data according to a position of at least one region of the target feature, or determining an angle of rotation and/or a distance of translation required by the ultrasonic volume data according to a relative position relationship between at least two regions of the target feature. Illustratively, the target feature comprises at least one of: levator ani fissure, angular point of anorectum, pubic ramus structure and anal canal structure. The target feature may also be other landmark features of the pelvic floor.

Wherein, the traditional target detection method or the machine learning method can be adopted to detect the target characteristic structure in the ultrasonic volume data. When the target characteristic structure is detected, the target characteristic structure can be detected in a plurality of two-dimensional sections of the ultrasonic volume data, and the detection results of the target characteristic structure on the plurality of two-dimensional sections are integrated to obtain the three-dimensional detection result of the target characteristic structure in the ultrasonic volume data. For example, the pubic region and anorectal angular point structures on the sagittal plane, the pubic ramus structures and anal canal structures on the transverse plane, etc. may be examined. Or, the three-dimensional detection can be directly performed on the ultrasonic volume data to obtain the three-dimensional detection result of the target characteristic structure.

Illustratively, a conventional target detection method may include three steps of region selection, feature extraction, and classification. Specifically, region selection refers to framing out candidate target regions based on, for example, a sliding window method; the feature extraction is to extract features of the candidate target region, and the extracted features include features such as SIFT (scale invariant feature transform) and HOG (histogram of oriented gradients). The classification is to classify the candidate target region by using a classifier to determine whether the current candidate target region includes a target feature structure, and the classifier may adopt a classifier of the type of KNN (K-nearest neighbor algorithm), SVM (support vector machine), random forest, or the like. Conventional target detection methods may also include pixel clustering methods, edge segmentation, graph cutting, or threshold-based image segmentation algorithms, among others.

Detecting a target feature structure in ultrasonic volume data based on a machine learning method requires constructing an ultrasonic volume database for each target feature structure in advance, wherein each ultrasonic volume data marks a position corresponding to the target feature structure, and then learning an optimal mapping function based on the ultrasonic volume database for mapping the ultrasonic volume data to the target feature structure. The machine learning method may include the following methods, which may be implemented separately or in combination.

The first alternative machine learning method is a sliding window based method. Specifically, firstly, feature extraction is performed on the area in the sliding window, and the extracted features may be features such as traditional PCA (principal component analysis), LDA (linear discriminant analysis), Harr features, textures, and the like, and may also be performed by using a deep neural network. And then, classifying by using the trained classifier, and determining whether the current window comprises the target feature structure.

A second alternative machine learning method is a Bounding-Box (Bounding-Box) based deep learning method. Firstly, a network is constructed by stacking convolution layers and full connection layers, feature learning and parameter regression are carried out through the network based on a constructed ultrasonic volume database, training samples in the ultrasonic volume database are sent into the network constructed in advance, a loss function of the network is optimized to carry out training until the network converges, and the network can learn how to identify the position of a target feature structure from ultrasonic volume data in the training process. The specific process of training the machine learning model can be directly training the ultrasonic volume data, or decomposing the ultrasonic volume data into a plurality of two-dimensional tangent planes, respectively training the two-dimensional tangent planes and splicing the two-dimensional tangent planes into the training result of the ultrasonic volume data.

After the network is trained, for the ultrasonic volume data input into the network, a corresponding boundary box of the target feature structure can be directly regressed through the network, and meanwhile, the category of the target feature structure contained in the boundary box is obtained. Network structures include, but are not limited to, R-CNN, Fast R-CNN, Faster-RCNN, SSD, YOLO, and the like.

The third optional machine learning method is an end-to-end semantic segmentation network method based on deep learning, which has a similar structure to the above deep learning method based on a bounding box, and is different in that the semantic segmentation network removes the last full connection layer of the network, and adds an upsampling or deconvolution layer to make the input and output sizes the same, thereby directly obtaining a target feature structure and a corresponding category thereof in the ultrasonic volume data input to the network. Illustratively, the network structure of the semantic segmentation network includes but is not limited to FCN, U-Net, Mask R-CNN, and the like.

After detecting the target feature in the ultrasound volume data, the angle that the ultrasound volume data needs to be rotated can be indirectly calculated from the target feature. Wherein the angle of rotation required and/or the distance of translation required for the ultrasound volume data may be determined from the location of the region of the at least one target feature. For example, the rotation angle required to rotate the ultrasound volume data to the target location, or the distance required to translate the ultrasound volume data to the target location, may be determined indirectly by calculating the rotation angle required to rotate the target feature from the current position to the target position. Alternatively, the angle at which the ultrasound volume data needs to be rotated and/or the distance at which the ultrasound volume data needs to be translated may be determined from the relative positional relationship between the regions of the at least two target features. For example, the angle at which the ultrasound volume data needs to be rotated and/or the distance at which the ultrasound volume data needs to be translated may be determined based on symmetry between target structures.

Then, based on the angle of rotation and/or the distance of translation required for the ultrasound volume data determined according to the target feature structure, the ultrasound volume data acquired in step S220 is transformed to the target position. The transformation of the ultrasonic volume data can comprise at least one of rotation and translation, when the ultrasonic volume data is rotated, three dimensions correspond to a rotation angle, and the corresponding angles are respectively rotated along the three dimensions, so that the rotated ultrasonic volume data can be obtained. Similarly, when the ultrasound volume data is translated, the three dimensions correspond to a translation amount, and the three dimensions are translated by corresponding distances respectively, so that the translated ultrasound volume data can be obtained.

As another alternative implementation manner for transforming the ultrasound volume data to the target position, the ultrasound volume data may be directly input into a trained machine learning model, and an angle at which the ultrasound volume data needs to be rotated and/or a distance at which the ultrasound volume data needs to be translated is output, and the ultrasound volume data is rotated to the target position according to the angle and the distance obtained by the machine learning model.

When the machine learning model is adopted to determine the rotation angle and translation distance of the ultrasonic volume data, the ultrasonic volume database of the pelvic floor needs to be constructed in advance for training the machine learning model. The ultrasonic volume database of the pelvic floor comprises a calibration result corresponding to the ultrasonic volume data of at least one pelvic floor, the calibration result is the angle of the ultrasonic volume data needing to be rotated and the distance of the ultrasonic volume data needing to be translated, and the rotation angle and the translation amount can be directly regressed through a trained machine learning model. The machine learning model stacks convolution layers and full connection layers through a deep learning network, angle and translation amount required by rectification are directly regressed through the last full connection layer, and the deep learning network structure comprises but is not limited to VGG, ResNet, DenseNet, DPN and the like.

Illustratively, referring to fig. 3, after transforming the ultrasound volume data to the target position, in addition to extracting the standard pelvic floor sagittal plane in the ultrasound volume data transformed to the target position, it is also possible to extract the standard pelvic floor coronal plane and the standard pelvic floor cross-section in the ultrasound volume data transformed to the target position, and display the extracted standard pelvic floor sagittal plane, standard pelvic floor coronal plane, and standard pelvic floor cross-section. Through setting the ultrasonic volume data, the suprapubic symphysis lower margin point structure and the anorectal angular point structure of the standard pelvic floor sagittal plane extracted from the ultrasonic volume data can be clearly displayed, and the suprapubic symphysis lower margin point structure and the anorectal angular point structure are positioned on the same horizontal line. Meanwhile, what is displayed on the cross section of the standard pelvic floor is the standard pelvic floor section image generated according to the section imaging reference line passing through the two points on the sagittal plane.

Further, rendering can be performed on the straightened ultrasonic volume data to obtain and display a VR diagram. Because the ultrasound volume data is previously rectified, the VR graph can better present the features of interest to the user. In some embodiments, the user may further adjust the orientation of the ultrasound volume data based on the currently displayed standard pelvic floor sagittal plane, standard pelvic floor coronal plane, and standard pelvic floor cross-section and VR map, and the processor transforms the orientation of the ultrasound volume data based on the received user instructions and regenerates the standard pelvic floor sagittal plane, standard pelvic floor coronal plane, and standard pelvic floor cross-section.

The ultrasonic volume data are straightened, and then the standard pelvic floor sagittal plane is extracted from the straightened ultrasonic volume data, so that the method is easier to realize, the extracted tangent plane is more accurate, and the method is favorable for a user to check interested characteristic structures in a VR image. In another embodiment, the ultrasound volume data may not be rectified, but the standard pelvic floor sagittal plane position is determined first from the ultrasound volume data, and then the standard pelvic floor sagittal plane is extracted at the position. For example, at least one target feature on a standard pelvic floor sagittal plane may be identified in the ultrasound volume data, with a section intersecting the at least one target feature as the standard pelvic floor sagittal plane.

In order to facilitate the observation of the multiple cross sections of the ultrasonic volume data of the pelvic floor by the user, multiple tomographic sections need to be further generated in the straightened volume data for display. Therefore, after obtaining the standard pelvic floor sagittal plane, step S240 is performed to determine a plurality of reference lines in the standard pelvic floor sagittal plane, generate and display a plurality of corresponding standard pelvic floor fault sections according to the plurality of reference lines, and generate one standard pelvic floor fault section for each reference line. The reference line, which may also be referred to as an imaging reference line, is the intersection of the slice plane and the standard pelvic floor sagittal plane.

For example, referring to fig. 4, when determining a plurality of reference lines, a central reference line 401 may be determined first, and then other reference lines 402 may be determined at equal intervals above and below the central reference line 401. As a specific implementation manner, a region of a pubis combined with a lower marginal point and a region of an anorectal angular point may be detected in a standard pelvic floor sagittal plane, a connecting line of the region of the pubis combined with the lower marginal point and the region of the anorectal angular point is used as a first reference line, a plurality of second reference lines are generated at equal intervals on two sides of the first reference line, and the first reference line and the second reference line are used as a plurality of reference lines for generating a standard pelvic floor fault section. Wherein, the first reference line is the above-mentioned central reference line.

The area of the pubis combined with the lower marginal point and the area of the anorectal angular point on the standard pelvic floor sagittal plane can be automatically detected through an image recognition algorithm, and the image recognition algorithm can comprise a traditional target detection method or a machine learning method, and can be referred to above specifically. After the area of the pubis combined with the lower edge point and the area of the anorectal angular point are identified, a first reference line can be automatically generated through the two points, and a plurality of second reference lines are generated on the first reference line at equal intervals by taking the first reference line as the center in a self-adaptive manner.

In another embodiment, after the ultrasonic volume data is aligned, the horizontal center line of the standard pelvic floor sagittal plane passes through the pubic symphysis lower margin point and the anorectal angular point, so that the horizontal center line of the standard pelvic floor sagittal plane can be directly used as a first reference line, a plurality of second reference lines are generated at equal intervals on two sides of the first reference line, and the first reference line and the second reference line are used as a plurality of reference lines.

In some embodiments, the automatically determined plurality of reference lines may be displayed in a standard pelvic floor sagittal plane for viewing and adjustment by a user, and when an adjustment instruction for the position of the reference lines by the user is received, the position of the reference lines may be adjusted according to the received user instruction. In some embodiments, the position of the center reference line may be adjusted according to the received user instruction, and the positions of the other reference lines may be adaptively adjusted according to the adjusted center reference line.

After a plurality of reference lines are generated on the standard pelvic floor sagittal plane, a standard pelvic floor fault section perpendicular to the standard pelvic floor sagittal plane is generated according to each reference line. The direction of the standard pelvic floor fault section is parallel to the direction of the standard pelvic floor cross section, and compared with the standard pelvic floor cross section, the standard pelvic floor fault section has a certain depth, so that the tissue structure of the pelvic floor can be displayed more clearly. Referring to fig. 5, a plurality of standard pelvic floor fault sections can be displayed in parallel in a matrix form on the same display interface, wherein the standard pelvic floor fault section corresponding to the first reference line is displayed at the center of the interface, and the distance between the standard pelvic floor fault section corresponding to the first reference line and the standard pelvic floor fault section corresponding to the first reference line is displayed at the upper right corner of each standard pelvic floor fault section.

Based on the plurality of standard pelvic floor fault sections obtained in step S240, it is further determined whether there is a levator ani tear condition on each section, so as to reduce manual operations of the user and improve inspection efficiency. Accordingly, in step S250, the presence or absence of the levator ani tearing region in the plurality of standard pelvic floor tomography slices may be automatically detected by the processor 116 of the ultrasound imaging system, and the display 118 may be controlled to mark the location of the levator ani tearing region in the standard pelvic floor tomography slice in which the levator ani tearing region is present. Illustratively, the indicia of the levator ani tear area may be adjustable, and the processor 116 may adjust the position of the indicia of the levator ani tear area based on the received user instructions.

In one embodiment, the presence of levator ani tearing regions in a plurality of standard pelvic floor slice sections may be detected based on an image recognition algorithm. Specifically, image features of a standard pelvic floor fault section are extracted, the image features are classified, whether an levator ani muscle tearing region exists in the standard pelvic floor fault section or not is determined according to a classification result, and the position of the levator ani muscle tearing region is determined. The levator ani tear area may then be selected by a bounding box on a standard pelvic floor fault section where it exists, as shown in fig. 6.

Illustratively, the image recognition algorithm includes a template matching method based on conventional image processing and an image recognition algorithm based on deep learning. The template matching method based on the traditional image processing comprises the following steps: the method comprises the steps of obtaining an ultrasonic image database of an anorectal levator tearing ROI (Region of Interest), traversing a standard pelvic floor fault section in a sliding window mode, and extracting image features in the sliding window, wherein the feature extraction method comprises the steps of extracting features such as PCA (principal component analysis), Harr (Harr) features or textures, and the features can also be extracted by adopting a deep neural network. And matching the extracted image features with features in a database, classifying by using discriminators such as KNN, SVN, random forest or neural network and the like, determining whether the situation of levator ani muscle tearing exists in each standard pelvic floor fault section, and determining the position of an levator ani muscle tearing area.

The image recognition method based on deep learning is consistent with the detection network framework of the target feature structure in step S230, that is, a Backbone network (Backbone) and a Feature Pyramid (FPN) are constructed by stacking convolutional layers, and image features of a significant levator ani tearing region on each standard pelvic floor fault section are detected and marked.

In another embodiment, the LUG (Levator urologic Gap) index of the Levator ani can be automatically measured to determine whether there is Levator ani tearing on each standard pelvic floor fault section. And detecting the area of the urethral orifice point in each standard pelvic floor fault section and the areas of the attachment points of the levator ani muscles at two sides, and acquiring the distance between the area of the urethral orifice point and the area of the attachment point of the levator ani muscle at each side. And if the distance exceeds a preset threshold value, determining that the levator ani torn area exists in the standard pelvic floor fault section. Since levator ani tears typically occur at the levator ani attachment point, the location of the levator ani tear region at the levator ani attachment point at a distance from the region of the urethral meatus point that exceeds a preset threshold can be determined and marked. Referring to fig. 7, the cross at the center of the image represents the urethral orifice point, the crosses at the two sides represent the levator ani muscle attachment point 1 and the levator ani muscle attachment point 2 respectively, the distance between the area of the urethral orifice point and the area of the levator ani muscle attachment point 1 is 1.97cm, the distance between the area of the urethral orifice point and the area of the levator ani muscle attachment point 2 is 3.50cm, and if the preset threshold is 2.5cm, the distance between the area of the urethral orifice point and the area of the levator ani muscle attachment point 2 exceeds the threshold, so that the levator ani muscle tearing area exists in the standard pelvic floor fault section, and the area of the levator ani muscle attachment point 2 can be used as the levator ani muscle tearing area.

Specifically, the coordinates of the region of the urethral orifice point and the bilateral levator ani attachment points on each standard pelvic floor fault section can be directly regressed by stacking the convolution layer and the full-connection layer based on a key point regression network for deep learning, the LUG value is automatically measured according to the coordinates, and whether tearing exists or not is judged by judging whether the LUG value exceeds a preset threshold value or not. Or, only the convolution layers can be stacked to build a Gaussian point regression network of the full convolution layer, the network structure is FCN or U-Net, then the position with the maximum probability is obtained according to the Gaussian heat map output by the network to obtain the coordinates of the urethral orifice point and the attachment points of the levator ani muscles at two sides, and then the LUG value is automatically measured to judge whether the levator ani muscle tearing condition exists.

Further, when the levator ani torn area exists in the standard pelvic floor fault section, the distance between the area of the urethral orifice point and the area of the bilateral levator ani attachment points is displayed. Alternatively, it is also possible to display only the distance between the area of the urethral meatus point and the area of the levator ani muscle attachment point that exceeds the threshold value.

In order to facilitate the user to observe the tearing state of the levator ani muscle in multiple directions, after detection is carried out on each standard pelvic floor fault section, if the tearing region of the levator ani muscle is detected, further imaging can be carried out on the tearing position of the levator ani muscle.

For example, when it is determined that there is a levator ani tear region in a standard pelvic floor fault section, at least one of a sagittal plane, a coronal plane, and a cross-sectional plane of the levator ani tear region may be generated and displayed. Namely, by taking the levator ani tearing area as a reference, the sagittal plane, the coronal plane and the cross section at the levator ani tearing position are extracted from the ultrasonic volume data and displayed.

Or when the levator ani tearing region exists in the standard pelvic floor fault section, the corresponding reference line of the standard pelvic floor fault section with the levator ani tearing region in the multiple reference lines on the standard pelvic floor sagittal plane can be determined and recorded as a first target reference line, and the standard pelvic floor fault section with the levator ani tearing region is generated based on the first target reference line. Then, a plurality of second target reference lines are generated in the standard pelvic floor sagittal plane based on the first target reference lines, and a plurality of tomographic sections are generated and displayed based on the plurality of second target reference lines. The distance between two adjacent second target reference lines is smaller than the distance between two adjacent reference lines in the multiple reference lines generated in step S240, so that the fault section generated according to the second target reference lines is more likely to contain the levator ani tearing area, and the user can observe the levator ani tearing state in multiple directions.

To sum up, the ultrasonic pelvic floor imaging method 200 of the embodiment of the present application automatically realizes automatic imaging of the pelvic floor tomographic section based on the ultrasonic volume data of the pelvic floor, and fully automatically performs recognition and marking of levator ani muscle tearing, thereby greatly reducing manual operation of the user and improving the efficiency of pelvic floor ultrasonic examination.

The embodiment of the present application further provides an ultrasound imaging system, which is used for implementing the ultrasound pelvic floor imaging method 200. Referring back to fig. 1, the ultrasound imaging system may be implemented as the ultrasound imaging system 100 shown in fig. 1, the ultrasound imaging system 100 may include an ultrasound probe 110, a transmitting circuit 112, a receiving circuit 114, a processor 116, and a display 118, and optionally, the ultrasound imaging system 100 may further include a transmitting/receiving selection switch 120 and a beam forming module 122, the transmitting circuit 112 and the receiving circuit 114 may be connected to the ultrasound probe 110 through the transmitting/receiving selection switch 120, and the description of each component may refer to the above description, which is not repeated here.

The transmitting circuit 112 is used for exciting the ultrasonic probe 110 to transmit ultrasonic waves to the pelvic floor of the measured object; the transmitting circuit is used for controlling the ultrasonic probe to receive the echo of the ultrasonic wave so as to obtain an ultrasonic echo signal; the processor is configured to execute the steps of the ultrasonic pelvic floor imaging method 200 described above, and specifically includes: controlling the ultrasonic probe 110 to emit ultrasonic waves to the pelvic floor of the measured object and receive echoes of the ultrasonic waves to obtain ultrasonic echo signals; performing signal processing on the ultrasonic echo signal to obtain ultrasonic volume data of the pelvic floor; extracting a standard pelvic floor sagittal plane based on the ultrasound volume data; determining a plurality of reference lines in the standard pelvic floor sagittal plane, and generating and displaying a plurality of corresponding standard pelvic floor fault sections according to the plurality of reference lines; and detecting whether the anal levator tearing areas exist in the standard pelvic floor fault sections, and marking the positions of the anal levator tearing areas in the standard pelvic floor fault sections with the anal levator tearing areas.

In one embodiment, said extracting a standard pelvic floor sagittal plane based on said ultrasound volume data comprises: determining a target location based on the ultrasound volume data and transforming the ultrasound volume data to the target location; and extracting the standard pelvic floor sagittal plane from the ultrasonic volume data transformed to the target position.

In one embodiment, the determining a target location based on the ultrasound volume data comprises: detecting a region of a target feature in the ultrasound volume data, the target feature comprising at least one of: levator ani fissure, angular points of anorectum, pubic ramus structures and anal canal structures; and determining the rotation angle and/or translation distance required by the ultrasonic volume data according to the position of at least one region of the target feature, or determining the rotation angle and/or translation distance required by the ultrasonic volume data according to the relative position relationship between at least two regions of the target feature.

In one embodiment, the processor 116 is further configured to: extracting a standard pelvic floor coronal plane and a standard pelvic floor cross section from the ultrasound volume data transformed to the target position; the control display 118 displays the standard pelvic floor sagittal plane, the standard pelvic floor coronal plane, and the standard pelvic floor cross-section.

In one embodiment, the processor 116 is further configured to: when it is determined that there is a levator ani tear area in the standard pelvic floor fault section, the control display 118 displays the distance between the area of the urethral meatus point and the area of the bilateral levator ani attachment points.

In one embodiment, the processor 116 is further configured to: when the levator ani tearing region is determined to exist in the standard pelvic floor fault section, generating and displaying a sagittal plane, a coronal plane and/or a cross section of the levator ani tearing region.

In one embodiment, when it is determined that there is an levator ani tear region in the standard pelvic floor fault section, the processor 116 is further configured to: determining a first target reference line corresponding to a standard pelvic floor fault section with an levator ani torn area in the plurality of reference lines; generating a plurality of second target reference lines in the standard pelvic floor sagittal plane based on the first target reference line; a plurality of tomographic sections are generated based on the plurality of second target reference lines, and the display 118 is controlled to display the plurality of tomographic sections.

In one embodiment, the processor 116 is further configured to: adjusting the position of the indicia of the levator ani tear area according to the received user instruction.

Only the primary functions of the components of the ultrasound imaging system are described above, for more details see the related description of the ultrasound pelvic floor imaging method 200.

Next, an ultrasonic pelvic floor imaging method according to another embodiment of the present application will be described with reference to fig. 8. FIG. 8 is a schematic flow chart diagram of an ultrasonic pelvic floor imaging method 800 in an embodiment of the application. As shown in fig. 8, the ultrasound pelvic floor imaging method 800 includes the steps of:

in step S810, controlling an ultrasonic probe to emit an ultrasonic wave to the pelvic floor of a measured object and receive an echo of the ultrasonic wave to obtain an ultrasonic echo signal;

in step S820, performing signal processing on the ultrasonic echo signal to obtain ultrasonic volume data of the pelvic floor;

in step S830, a standard pelvic floor sagittal plane is extracted based on the ultrasound volume data;

in step S840, determining a plurality of reference lines in the standard pelvic floor sagittal plane, and generating a plurality of corresponding standard pelvic floor fault sections according to the plurality of reference lines;

in step S850, detecting whether an levator ani torn area exists in the standard pelvic floor fault sections;

in step S860, a standard pelvic floor tomographic section in which the levator ani torn region exists is displayed, and the position of the levator ani torn region is marked in the standard pelvic floor tomographic section in which the levator ani torn region exists.

The ultrasound pelvic floor imaging method 800 shown in fig. 8 differs from the ultrasound pelvic floor imaging method 200 described above in that a plurality of corresponding standard pelvic floor slice sections are generated from a plurality of reference lines in step S840 of the ultrasound pelvic floor imaging method 800, but not necessarily all of the standard pelvic floor slice sections are displayed; when the levator ani tearing area is detected, the standard pelvic floor fault section with the levator ani tearing area is displayed, and the levator ani tearing area is marked, so that the targeted display is performed on the levator ani tearing area, and the inspection efficiency is improved. Otherwise, the ultrasonic pelvic floor imaging method 800 is substantially similar to the ultrasonic pelvic floor imaging method 200.

Furthermore, in order to facilitate the user to observe the tearing state of the levator ani muscle in multiple directions, after detection is carried out on each standard pelvic floor fault section, if the tearing region of the levator ani muscle is detected, further imaging can be carried out on the tearing position of the levator ani muscle.

For example, when it is determined that a levator ani tear region is present in a standard pelvic floor slice plane, at least one of a standard pelvic floor sagittal plane, a standard pelvic floor coronal plane, and a standard pelvic floor cross-section of the levator ani tear region may also be generated and displayed. Or when the levator ani tearing region exists in the standard pelvic floor fault section, the corresponding first target reference line of the standard pelvic floor fault section with the levator ani tearing region in the multiple reference lines can be determined, and multiple second target reference lines are generated in the standard pelvic floor sagittal plane based on the first target reference line; and generating and displaying a plurality of fault sections based on the plurality of second target reference lines.

In addition, the ultrasonic pelvic floor imaging method 800 has many contents that are the same as or similar to those of the ultrasonic pelvic floor imaging method 200, and specific reference may be made to the above, which is not described herein again. According to the ultrasonic pelvic floor imaging method 200, the torn region of the levator ani can be identified and marked fully automatically, manual operation of a user is greatly reduced, and the efficiency of ultrasonic examination of the pelvic floor is improved.

The embodiment of the present application further provides an ultrasound imaging system, which is used for implementing the ultrasound pelvic floor imaging method 800. Referring back to fig. 1, the ultrasound imaging system may be implemented as the ultrasound imaging system 100 shown in fig. 1, the ultrasound imaging system 100 may include an ultrasound probe 110, a transmitting circuit 112, a receiving circuit 114, a processor 116, and a display 118, and optionally, the ultrasound imaging system 100 may further include a transmitting/receiving selection switch 120 and a beam forming module 122, the transmitting circuit 112 and the receiving circuit 114 may be connected to the ultrasound probe 110 through the transmitting/receiving selection switch 120, and the description of each component may refer to the above description, which is not repeated here.

The transmitting circuit 112 is used for exciting the ultrasonic probe 110 to transmit ultrasonic waves to the pelvic floor of the measured object; the transmitting circuit is used for controlling the ultrasonic probe to receive the echo of the ultrasonic wave so as to obtain an ultrasonic echo signal; the processor is configured to perform the steps of the ultrasonic pelvic floor imaging method 800 as described above, and specifically includes: controlling the ultrasonic probe 110 to emit ultrasonic waves to the pelvic floor of the measured object and receive echoes of the ultrasonic waves to obtain ultrasonic echo signals; performing signal processing on the ultrasonic echo signal to obtain ultrasonic volume data of the pelvic floor; extracting a standard pelvic floor sagittal plane based on the ultrasound volume data; determining a plurality of reference lines in the standard pelvic floor sagittal plane, and generating a plurality of corresponding standard pelvic floor fault sections according to the plurality of reference lines; detecting whether an levator ani torn area exists in the standard pelvic floor fault sections; and displaying a standard pelvic floor fault section with the levator ani tearing area, and marking the position of the levator ani tearing area in the standard pelvic floor fault section with the levator ani tearing area.

Only the primary functions of the components of the ultrasound imaging system are described above, for more details see the related description of the ultrasound pelvic floor imaging method 800.

Although the example embodiments have been described herein with reference to the accompanying drawings, it is to be understood that the above-described example embodiments are merely illustrative and are not intended to limit the scope of the present application thereto. Various changes and modifications may be effected therein by one of ordinary skill in the pertinent art without departing from the scope or spirit of the present application. All such changes and modifications are intended to be included within the scope of the present application as claimed in the appended claims.

Those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the various illustrative elements and algorithm steps described in connection with the embodiments disclosed herein may be implemented as electronic hardware or combinations of computer software and electronic hardware. Whether such functionality is implemented as hardware or software depends upon the particular application and design constraints imposed on the implementation. Skilled artisans may implement the described functionality in varying ways for each particular application, but such implementation decisions should not be interpreted as causing a departure from the scope of the present application.

In the several embodiments provided in the present application, it should be understood that the disclosed apparatus and method may be implemented in other ways. For example, the above-described device embodiments are merely illustrative, and for example, the division of the units is only one logical functional division, and other divisions may be realized in practice, for example, a plurality of units or components may be combined or integrated into another device, or some features may be omitted, or not executed.

In the description provided herein, numerous specific details are set forth. However, it is understood that embodiments of the application may be practiced without these specific details. In some instances, well-known methods, structures and techniques have not been shown in detail in order not to obscure an understanding of this description.

Similarly, it should be appreciated that in the description of exemplary embodiments of the present application, various features of the present application are sometimes grouped together in a single embodiment, figure, or description thereof for the purpose of streamlining the application and aiding in the understanding of one or more of the various inventive aspects. However, the method of the present application should not be construed to reflect the intent: this application is intended to cover such departures from the present disclosure as come within known or customary practice in the art to which this invention pertains. Rather, as the following claims reflect, inventive aspects lie in less than all features of a single disclosed embodiment. Thus, the claims following the detailed description are hereby expressly incorporated into this detailed description, with each claim standing on its own as a separate embodiment of this application.

It will be understood by those skilled in the art that all of the features disclosed in this specification (including any accompanying claims, abstract and drawings), and all of the processes or elements of any method or apparatus so disclosed, may be combined in any combination, except combinations where such features are mutually exclusive. Each feature disclosed in this specification (including any accompanying claims, abstract and drawings) may be replaced by alternative features serving the same, equivalent or similar purpose, unless expressly stated otherwise.

Furthermore, those skilled in the art will appreciate that while some embodiments described herein include some features included in other embodiments, rather than other features, combinations of features of different embodiments are meant to be within the scope of the application and form different embodiments. For example, in the claims, any of the claimed embodiments may be used in any combination.

The various component embodiments of the present application may be implemented in hardware, or in software modules running on one or more processors, or in a combination thereof. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that a microprocessor or Digital Signal Processor (DSP) may be used in practice to implement some or all of the functionality of some of the modules according to embodiments of the present invention. The present application may also be embodied as apparatus programs (e.g., computer programs and computer program products) for performing a portion or all of the methods described herein. Such programs implementing the present application may be stored on a computer readable medium or may be in the form of one or more signals. Such a signal may be downloaded from an internet website or provided on a carrier signal or in any other form.

It should be noted that the above-mentioned embodiments illustrate rather than limit the application, and that those skilled in the art will be able to design alternative embodiments without departing from the scope of the appended claims. In the claims, any reference signs placed between parentheses shall not be construed as limiting the claim. The application may be implemented by means of hardware comprising several distinct elements, and by means of a suitably programmed computer. In the unit claims enumerating several means, several of these means may be embodied by one and the same item of hardware. The usage of the words first, second and third, etcetera do not indicate any ordering. These words may be interpreted as names.

The above description is only for the specific embodiments of the present application or the description thereof, and the protection scope of the present application is not limited thereto, and any person skilled in the art can easily conceive of the changes or substitutions within the technical scope disclosed in the present application, and shall be covered by the protection scope of the present application. The protection scope of the present application shall be subject to the protection scope of the claims.

Claims

1. A method of ultrasonic pelvic floor imaging, the method comprising:

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said extracting a standard pelvic floor sagittal plane based on the ultrasound volume data comprises:

and extracting the standard pelvic floor sagittal plane from the ultrasonic volume data transformed to the target position.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein determining a target location based on the ultrasound volume data comprises:

4. The method of claim 2, wherein determining a target location based on the ultrasound volume data comprises:

and inputting the ultrasonic volume data into a trained machine learning model, and outputting the angle of the ultrasonic volume data needing to be rotated and/or the distance of the ultrasonic volume data needing to be translated.

5. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

extracting a standard pelvic floor coronal plane and a standard pelvic floor cross section from the ultrasound volume data transformed to the target position;

displaying the standard pelvic floor sagittal plane, the standard pelvic floor coronal plane, and the standard pelvic floor cross-section.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein said determining a plurality of reference lines in the standard pelvic floor sagittal plane comprises:

detecting the area of the pubis united lower margin point and the area of the anorectal angular point in the standard pelvic floor sagittal plane;

and taking a connecting line of the area of the pubis combined with the lower edge point and the area of the anorectal angular point as a first reference line, generating a plurality of second reference lines at equal intervals on two sides of the first reference line, and taking the first reference line and the second reference lines as the plurality of reference lines.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein said determining a plurality of reference lines in the standard pelvic floor sagittal plane comprises:

and taking a horizontal central line of the sagittal plane of the standard pelvic floor as a first reference line, generating a plurality of second reference lines at equal intervals on two sides of the first reference line, and taking the first reference line and the second reference line as the plurality of reference lines.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein said detecting the presence of a levator ani tear region in the plurality of standard pelvic floor fault slices comprises:

extracting the image characteristics of the standard basin bottom fault section;

and classifying the image features, and determining whether an levator ani torn area exists in the standard pelvic floor fault section according to the classification result.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein said detecting the presence of a levator ani tear region in the plurality of standard pelvic floor fault slices comprises:

detecting the area of the urethral orifice point in the standard pelvic floor fault section and the areas of the bilateral levator ani attachment points;

acquiring the distance between the area of the urethral orifice point and the area of the levator ani attachment point;

and if the distance exceeds a preset threshold value, determining that an levator ani torn area exists in the standard pelvic floor fault section.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

and when the fact that the levator ani torn areas exist in the standard pelvic floor fault section is determined, displaying the distance between the area of the urethral orifice point and the areas of the attachment points of the levator ani on the two sides.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

when the levator ani tearing region is determined to exist in the standard pelvic floor fault section, generating and displaying a sagittal plane, a coronal plane and/or a cross section of the levator ani tearing region.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein when it is determined that an levator ani tear area is present in the standard pelvic floor fault section, the method further comprises:

determining a first target reference line corresponding to a standard pelvic floor fault section with an levator ani torn area in the plurality of reference lines;

generating a plurality of second target reference lines in the standard pelvic floor sagittal plane based on the first target reference line;

and generating and displaying a plurality of fault sections based on the plurality of second target reference lines.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

adjusting the position of the indicia of the levator ani tear area according to the received user instruction.

14. A method of ultrasonic pelvic floor imaging, the method comprising:

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

16. The method of claim 14, wherein when it is determined that an levator ani tear area is present in the standard pelvic floor fault section, the method further comprises:

17. An ultrasound imaging system, comprising:

an ultrasonic probe;

a processor for performing the steps of the ultrasonic pelvic floor imaging method of any one of claims 1-16;