JPWO2022002627A5

JPWO2022002627A5 -

Info

Publication number: JPWO2022002627A5
Application number: JP2022580512A
Authority: JP
Publication date: 2024-04-23

Claims

1. A method for ultrasonic ultrasound imaging using an ultrasound system including an ultrasound probe including a transducer array and an ADC array, the ultrasound probe insonifying an imaging region, receiving echo signals, digitizing the echo signals received by the ADC array, and transmitting the digitized RF data over a bandwidth limited channel to a data processing unit, the data processing unit beamforming the RF data, the method comprising:
acquiring at least one scouting image of the imaging region, the scouting image including an anatomical structure of interest;
selecting at least one region of interest within the scouting image, the at least one region of interest including a portion of the anatomical structure;
configuring a transmit scheme and a receive scheme for ultrasound imaging of the imaging region, wherein the at least one region of interest is insonified using transmit and receive settings that are different from the imaging region outside the at least one region of interest;
acquiring a plurality of ultrasound images according to the transmit scheme and the receive scheme;
having
the ultrasonic probe transmits to the data processing unit only the received RF data corresponding to a depth range of the at least one region of interest for at least some of the defined receive beams reflected by the at least one region of interest, and transmits the received RF data corresponding to the entire depth of the imaging region for at least some of the receive beams reflected by the imaging region outside the at least one region of interest.
Method.

the transmit and receive schemes comprising insonifying the at least one region of interest using a higher time resolution and/or using a different type of transmit beam and/or using a different pulse repetition rate compared to the imaging region outside the at least one region of interest.
The method of claim 1.

wherein the transmission power and/or focusing scheme of a transmission beam for insonifying the at least one region of interest is adapted to the at least one region of interest, in particular to the position of the at least one region of interest relative to the ultrasound probe,
The method according to claim 1 or claim 2.

the transmit and receive schemes include interleaving at least one region of interest acquisition cycle in which only the at least one region of interest is insonified between two full acquisition cycles in which an entire imaging region of the ultrasound probe is insonified;
According to the receiving scheme, during the region of interest acquisition cycle, the ultrasonic probe transmits only the received RF data corresponding to a depth range of the at least one region of interest for at least some of the defined receive beams reflected by the at least one region of interest, and during the full acquisition cycle, the ultrasonic probe transmits the received RF data corresponding to a depth range of the entire imaging region of the ultrasonic probe.
The method according to any one of claims 1 to 3.

The ultrasound probe comprises an in-probe memory, the in-probe memory being particularly integrated with the ADC array, and the method further comprises:
selecting digitized RF data corresponding to the depth range of the at least one region of interest for at least some of the defined receive beams reflected by the at least one region of interest for transmission to the data processing unit;
buffering at least some of the selected digitized RF data in an in-probe memory to delay transmission of the RF data from the ultrasound probe when a predetermined maximum data rate is exceeded;
The method according to any one of claims 1 to 4, further comprising:

Before the digitized RF data is transmitted to the data processing unit, the digitized RF data is compressed, in particular via a discrete wavelet transform.
6. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 5.

the digitized RF data reflected by the at least one region of interest is compressed using a different bit depth, in particular using a larger bit depth, and/or using a different sub-sampling pattern and/or using a different wavelet compression, compared to the digitized RF data reflected by the imaging area outside the at least one region of interest.
The method according to claim 6.

the transmit and receive schemes use a wide transmit beam imaging mode including a plurality of transmit events to insonify the imaging region, only a portion of the plurality of transmit events insonifying the at least one region of interest, and the transmit events insonifying the at least one region of interest are performed with a higher temporal resolution.
8. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 7.

the transmit scheme uses a plurality of transmit events to insonify the imaging region, a portion of the plurality of transmit events insonifying the at least one region of interest, and spatially equivalent transmit events begin at the same time offset in the at least one region of interest acquisition cycle and in the overall acquisition cycle.
9. The method according to any one of claims 4 to 8.

two or more regions of interest are selected within the scouting image, each of the two or more regions of interest including a portion of the anatomical structure;
wherein the two or more regions of interest are insonified using transmit and receive settings that differ from the imaging region outside the two or more regions of interest;
at least two different regions of interest are insonified using mutually different transmit and receive settings;
10. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 9.

reconstructing a region of interest image from the region of interest acquisition cycles and a full ultrasound image from the full acquisition cycle;
upsampling the entire ultrasound image in time to achieve a frame rate for the entire imaging field of view that is the same as the frame rate for the region of interest image;
blending the upsampled overall ultrasound image together with the region of interest image;
The method of any one of claims 3 to 10, further comprising:

- upsampling is performed using interpolation, said interpolation taking into account motion between said at least one region of interest and the remaining imaging region by using a specifically trained neural network.
The method according to claim 10 or 11.

in the transmit scheme, the at least one region of interest and the imaging region outside the at least one region of interest are insonified by overlapping transmit beams, with more of the transmit beams overlapping in the at least one region of interest than in the imaging region outside the at least one region of interest;
13. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 12.

the at least one region of interest is automatically detected and tracked in the at least one scouting image and/or in the plurality of ultrasound images by computer vision and/or artificial intelligence algorithms.
14. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 13.

15. An ultrasound imaging system for implementing the method of any one of claims 1 to 14, comprising an ultrasound probe including a transducer array and an ADC array, the ultrasound probe insonifying an imaging region, receiving echo signals, digitizing the received echo signals, and transmitting the digitized RF data to a data processing unit via an interface comprising a bandwidth limited channel, the data processing unit processing the RF data for beamforming.
Ultrasound imaging system.