WO2021035400A1 - Measurement method and device for hepato-renal echo contrast, medical system, and storage medium - Google Patents

Abstract

A measurement method (200) and device (900) for hepato-renal echo contrast, a medical system, and a storage medium. The method (200) comprises: emitting ultrasonic waves to liver and kidney parts of a target object, receiving ultrasonic echoes of the liver and kidney parts (S710, S810), and performing ultrasonic image processing on the basis of the ultrasonic echoes to obtain ultrasonic images (S210, S610); respectively acquiring a position of a hepatic tissue area and a position of a renal tissue area on the basis of the ultrasonic images, and respectively emitting the ultrasonic waves to the hepatic tissue area and the renal tissue area on the basis of the acquired positions and receiving ultrasonic echoes (S220); separately performing signal processing on the ultrasonic echo of the hepatic tissue area and the ultrasonic echo of the renal tissue area to respectively obtain a first ultrasonic signal and a second ultrasonic signal, wherein the first and second ultrasonic signals are both ultrasonic signals having amplitude information and phase information (S230); and determining an echo difference between hepatic tissue and renal tissue of the target object on the basis of the first ultrasonic signal and the second ultrasonic signal (S240, S530, S640, S730, S830). The measurement method (200) can obtain a more accurate hepato-renal echo contrast result.

Description

Measuring method, equipment, medical system and storage medium for liver and kidney echo contrast

Manual

Technical field

This application relates to the technical field of measuring liver and kidney echo contrast, and more specifically to a method, equipment, medical system and storage medium for measuring liver and kidney echo contrast.

Background technique

In clinic, the ultrasound diagnosis of fatty liver mainly relies on the judgment of the echo intensity of the liver, and the comparison of the echo between the liver and its surrounding tissues or organs. The kidney is the organ closest to the liver. The increased echo contrast between the liver and kidney usually means that the possibility of fatty liver is increased. There are also some studies that show that liver and kidney echo contrast is helpful for the clinical diagnosis of chronic hepatitis B. It can be seen that the liver-kidney echo contrast is a parameter that has attracted much attention in liver ultrasound diagnosis.

In the existing liver-kidney echo contrast measurement method, the ultrasound image of the cut surface where the liver and the kidney can be observed is obtained first, and then the liver-kidney echo comparison result is obtained according to the brightness difference between the liver and the kidney on the ultrasound image. However, conventional ultrasound images are obtained after performing a lot of signal processing (such as amplification, frequency shifting, image enhancement, etc.) on the ultrasound echo signals. In these processes, the processing of the ultrasound echo signals at various positions is not complete. It is the same, and the steps for generating ultrasound images for different devices are often different, which is difficult to unify. Therefore, the difference in brightness between liver and kidney on ultrasound images cannot accurately reflect the comparison of liver and kidney echoes.

Summary of the invention

This application is made in order to solve the above-mentioned problems. This application provides a measurement scheme for liver and kidney echo contrast, which uses the original ultrasound echo signals with amplitude and phase information in the liver tissue area and the kidney tissue area as the basis for judging the liver and kidney echo contrast, so as to avoid the ultrasound image processing process. The effect of liver and kidney echo comparison results, so that more accurate liver and kidney echo comparison results can be obtained; or ultrasound images are still used as the basis for judging liver and kidney echo contrast, but certain methods are used in the process of obtaining ultrasound images to make ultrasound image processing The processing of ultrasonic echo signals at each position is equivalent, so that more accurate liver and kidney echo comparison results can be obtained.

The following briefly describes the measurement scheme of liver-kidney echo comparison proposed in the present application, and more details will be described in the specific embodiments in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

In one aspect of the present application, a method for measuring liver and kidney echo contrast is provided. The method includes: transmitting ultrasound to a liver and kidney part of a target object and receiving ultrasound echoes of the liver and kidney part, and based on the liver and kidney part. The ultrasound echoes are processed by ultrasound images to obtain ultrasound images; based on the ultrasound images, the locations of the liver tissue area and the kidney tissue area are respectively acquired, and based on the acquired locations of the liver tissue area and the kidney tissue area, respectively The liver tissue area and the kidney tissue area transmit ultrasonic waves and receive ultrasonic echoes; signal processing is performed on the ultrasound echoes of the liver tissue area and the kidney tissue areas respectively to obtain the first ultrasonic signals. And a second ultrasonic signal, the first ultrasonic signal and the second ultrasonic signal are both ultrasonic signals with amplitude information and phase information; and the determination of the first ultrasonic signal and the second ultrasonic signal is based on the first ultrasonic signal and the second ultrasonic signal. The echo difference between the liver tissue and kidney tissue of the target object.

In an embodiment of the present application, the signal processing includes at least one of the following: gain compensation, analog-to-digital conversion, beam synthesis, quadrature demodulation, baseband signal strength calculation, and gray-scale logarithmic compression.

In an embodiment of the present application, the signal processing includes the gain compensation, and the gain compensation uses the same compensation parameter for different depths.

In an embodiment of the present application, the signal processing includes the gain compensation, the gain compensation includes a first gain compensation and a second gain compensation, and the compensation parameter used in the first gain compensation increases with depth. As the depth increases, the compensation parameter used in the second gain compensation decreases.

In an embodiment of the present application, the signal processing includes the quadrature demodulation, and the quadrature demodulation uses the same demodulation frequency for different depths.

In an embodiment of the present application, the signal processing includes the quadrature demodulation, and the demodulation frequency used by the quadrature demodulation changes with the depth by less than a threshold.

In an embodiment of the present application, the determining the echo difference between liver tissue and kidney tissue of the target object based on the first ultrasound signal and the second ultrasound signal includes: determining the first ultrasound signal The ratio and/or difference between the parameter of the signal and the parameter of the second ultrasound signal is used as the echo difference between the liver tissue and the kidney tissue of the target object.

In an embodiment of the present application, the ratio and/or difference between the parameter of the first ultrasonic signal and the parameter of the second ultrasonic signal includes at least one of the following: The amplitude ratio, amplitude distribution standard deviation ratio, center frequency ratio, frequency distribution standard deviation ratio, amplitude difference, center frequency difference, and amplitude distribution standard deviation difference of the second ultrasonic signal.

In an embodiment of the present application, the value of any parameter of the first ultrasonic signal is the mean or median value of the parameter of the multiple signals included in the first ultrasonic signal, and the value of the second ultrasonic signal The value of any parameter is the mean value or the median value of the parameter of the multiple signals included in the second ultrasound signal.

In an embodiment of the present application, the determining the echo difference between the liver tissue and the kidney tissue of the target object based on the first ultrasound signal and the second ultrasound signal further includes: respectively based on the first ultrasound signal and the second ultrasound signal. An ultrasound signal and the second ultrasound signal extract image distribution related parameters, and compare the image distribution related parameters.

In an embodiment of the present application, the image distribution related parameters include histogram information and/or gray-scale travel statistical information.

In an embodiment of the present application, the liver tissue area is a first target area including liver tissue, and the kidney tissue area is a second target area including kidney tissue.

In an embodiment of the present application, the depths of the first target area and the second target area are the same.

In an embodiment of the present application, the method further includes: after determining the echo difference between the liver tissue and the kidney tissue of the target object, displaying the echo difference result on the ultrasound image.

In an embodiment of the present application, the displaying the echo difference result on the ultrasound image includes: directly displaying the compared parameter and the numerical result obtained by the comparison on the ultrasound image.

In an embodiment of the present application, the displaying the echo difference result on the ultrasound image includes: displaying respective values of the same parameter of the first ultrasound signal and the second ultrasound signal as image attributes In their respective tissue areas, different values are displayed using different image attributes.

In an embodiment of the present application, the image attribute is color or line thickness.

In another aspect of the present application, a method for measuring liver and kidney echo contrast is provided. The method includes: obtaining ultrasound echoes of a liver tissue region and ultrasound echoes of a kidney tissue region; and measuring the ultrasound echoes of the liver tissue region. And the ultrasound echoes of the kidney tissue area are processed separately to obtain the first ultrasound signal and the second ultrasound signal, and the signal processing includes at least one of the following: gain compensation, analog-to-digital conversion, beam synthesis, and Cross-demodulation, baseband signal intensity calculation and gray-scale logarithmic compression, and the first ultrasonic signal and the second ultrasonic signal have not undergone gray-scale conversion processing; and based on the first ultrasonic signal and the The second ultrasound signal determines the echo difference between the liver tissue and the kidney tissue of the target object.

In another aspect of the present application, there is provided a method for measuring liver and kidney echo contrast, the method comprising: transmitting ultrasound to the liver and kidney of a target object and receiving ultrasound echoes of the liver and kidney, and based on the liver and kidney. The ultrasound echoes of the parts are processed by ultrasound image to obtain ultrasound images; the ultrasound echoes of the liver tissue region and the ultrasound echoes of the kidney tissue region are acquired based on the ultrasound echoes of the liver and kidney parts; the ultrasound echoes of the liver tissue region are obtained The wave and the ultrasound echo of the kidney tissue region are each processed to obtain a first ultrasound signal and a second ultrasound signal, respectively, and the signal processing includes at least one of the following: gain compensation, analog-to-digital conversion, beam synthesis, Quadrature demodulation, baseband signal strength calculation and gray-scale logarithmic compression, and the first ultrasonic signal and the second ultrasonic signal have not undergone gray-scale conversion processing; based on the first ultrasonic signal and the The second ultrasound signal determines the echo difference between the liver tissue and the kidney tissue of the target object; and displays the ultrasound image and the echo difference.

In another aspect of the present application, there is provided a method for measuring liver and kidney echo contrast, the method comprising: transmitting ultrasound to a liver and kidney part of a target object and receiving ultrasound echoes of the liver and kidney part; based on the liver and kidney part The ultrasound echoes are processed to obtain ultrasound images, wherein the ultrasound image processing includes at least gain compensation and/or quadrature demodulation, the gain compensation uses the same compensation parameter for different depths, or the gain compensation Including first gain compensation and second gain compensation. The compensation parameter used in the first gain compensation increases with the increase of depth, and the compensation parameter used in the second gain compensation increases with the increase of depth. Decrease, the quadrature demodulation uses the same demodulation frequency for different depths, or the size of the demodulation frequency used by the quadrature demodulation changes with the depth by less than a threshold; and The ultrasound image determines the echo difference between liver tissue and kidney tissue of the target object.

In yet another aspect of the present application, there is provided a liver-kidney echo contrast measurement device. The device includes a memory and a processor. The memory stores a computer program run by the processor. When the processor is running, the method for measuring liver and kidney echo contrast described in any one of the above is executed.

In yet another aspect of the present application, a medical system is provided, and the medical system includes the above-mentioned liver and kidney echo contrast measurement equipment.

In yet another aspect of the present application, a storage medium is provided with a computer program stored on the storage medium, and the computer program executes any one of the above-mentioned methods for measuring liver and kidney echo contrast during operation.

The liver-kidney echo contrast measurement method, equipment, medical system, and storage medium according to the embodiments of the present application use the original ultrasound echo signals with amplitude and phase information in the liver tissue region and the kidney tissue region as the basis for judging liver-kidney echo contrast To avoid the impact of ultrasound image processing on the comparison of liver and kidney echoes, so as to obtain more accurate liver and kidney echo comparison results; or still use ultrasound images as the basis for judging liver and kidney echo contrasts, but use them in the process of obtaining ultrasound images A certain method makes the ultrasonic image processing equivalent to the ultrasonic echo signal processing at each position, so that more accurate liver and kidney echo comparison results can be obtained.

Description of the drawings

Fig. 1 shows a schematic block diagram of an exemplary ultrasound imaging system for implementing a method for measuring liver and kidney echo contrast according to an embodiment of the present application;

Fig. 2 shows a schematic flowchart of a method for measuring liver and kidney echo comparison according to an embodiment of the present application;

3A shows an exemplary schematic diagram of respectively acquiring the location of the liver tissue area and the location of the kidney tissue area based on the ultrasound image of the liver and kidney parts;

FIG. 3B shows an exemplary schematic diagram of displaying echo difference results on an ultrasound image; FIG.

FIG. 4A shows an exemplary graph in which the gain compensation parameter increases as the depth increases;

FIG. 4B shows an exemplary graph in which the gain compensation parameter remains unchanged with the change of depth;

FIG. 4C shows an exemplary graph in which the parameter of gain compensation increases with increasing depth;

FIG. 4D shows an exemplary graph in which the gain compensation parameter decreases as the depth increases;

Fig. 5 shows a schematic flowchart of a method for measuring liver and kidney echo comparison according to another embodiment of the present application;

Fig. 6 shows a schematic flowchart of a method for measuring liver and kidney echo comparison according to still another embodiment of the present application;

Fig. 7 shows a schematic flow chart of a method for measuring liver and kidney echo comparison according to another embodiment of the present application;

Fig. 8 shows a schematic flowchart of a method for measuring liver and kidney echo comparison according to still another embodiment of the present application; and

Fig. 9 shows a schematic block diagram of a measuring device for liver and kidney echo comparison according to an embodiment of the present application.

detailed description

In order to make the objectives, technical solutions, and advantages of the present application more obvious, exemplary embodiments according to the present application will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. Obviously, the described embodiments are only a part of the embodiments of the present application, rather than all the embodiments of the present application, and it should be understood that the present application is not limited by the exemplary embodiments described herein. Based on the embodiments of this application described in this application, all other embodiments obtained by those skilled in the art without creative work should fall within the protection scope of this application.

In the following description, a lot of specific details are given in order to provide a more thorough understanding of this application. However, it is obvious to those skilled in the art that this application can be implemented without one or more of these details. In other examples, in order to avoid confusion with this application, some technical features known in the art are not described.

It should be understood that this application can be implemented in different forms and should not be construed as being limited to the embodiments presented here. On the contrary, the provision of these embodiments will make the disclosure thorough and complete, and will fully convey the scope of the present application to those skilled in the art.

The purpose of the terms used here is only to describe specific embodiments and not as a limitation of the present application. When used herein, the singular forms "a", "an" and "the/the" are also intended to include plural forms, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It should also be understood that the terms "composition" and/or "including", when used in this specification, determine the existence of the described features, integers, steps, operations, elements and/or components, but do not exclude one or more other The existence or addition of features, integers, steps, operations, elements, components, and/or groups. As used herein, the term "and/or" includes any and all combinations of related listed items.

In order to thoroughly understand this application, detailed steps and detailed structures will be proposed in the following description to explain the technical solutions proposed by this application. The preferred embodiments of the present application are described in detail as follows, but in addition to these detailed descriptions, the present application may also have other implementation modes.

First, with reference to FIG. 1, an exemplary ultrasound imaging system for realizing the measurement method and equipment of liver-kidney echo contrast according to the embodiment of the present application will be described.

FIG. 1 is a schematic structural block diagram of an exemplary ultrasound imaging system 10 used to implement a liver-kidney echo comparison measurement method and device according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in FIG. 1, the ultrasound imaging system 10 may include an ultrasound probe 100, a transmission/reception selection switch 101, a transmission/reception sequence controller 102, a processor 103, a display 104, and a memory 105. The transmitting/receiving sequence controller 102 can excite the ultrasonic probe 100 to transmit ultrasonic waves to the target object, and can also control the ultrasonic probe 100 to receive ultrasonic echoes returned from the target object, thereby obtaining ultrasonic echo signals/data. The processor 103 processes the ultrasound echo signal/data to obtain tissue-related parameters and ultrasound images of the target object. The ultrasound images obtained by the processor 103 may be stored in the memory 105, and these ultrasound images may be displayed on the display 104.

In the embodiment of the present application, the aforementioned display 104 of the ultrasonic imaging system 10 may be a touch screen, a liquid crystal display, etc., or may be an independent display device such as a liquid crystal display, a TV, etc., independent of the ultrasonic imaging system 10, or It is the display screen on electronic devices such as mobile phones and tablet computers.

In the embodiment of the present application, the memory 105 of the aforementioned ultrasonic imaging system 10 may be a flash memory card, a solid-state memory, a hard disk, and the like.

The embodiments of the present application also provide a computer-readable storage medium that stores a plurality of program instructions. After the plurality of program instructions are invoked and executed by the processor 103, the liver in the various embodiments of the present application can be executed. Part or all of the steps in the renal echo contrast measurement method or any combination of the steps.

In an embodiment, the computer-readable storage medium may be the memory 105, which may be a non-volatile storage medium such as a flash memory card, a solid-state memory, a hard disk, or the like.

In the embodiment of the present application, the processor 103 of the aforementioned ultrasound imaging system 10 may be implemented by software, hardware, firmware, or a combination thereof, and may use a circuit, a single or multiple application specific integrated circuits (ASIC), a single or Multiple general-purpose integrated circuits, single or multiple microprocessors, single or multiple programmable logic devices, or a combination of the foregoing circuits or devices, or other suitable circuits or devices, so that the processor 103 can execute various embodiments Corresponding steps in the measurement method of liver and kidney echo contrast.

The method for measuring liver and kidney echo contrast in the present application will be described in detail below with reference to FIGS. 2 to 8, and the method can be applied to the aforementioned ultrasound imaging system 10. The ultrasound imaging system 10 can use ultrasound echo data to generate elastic images, and can also use ultrasound echo data to generate conventional ultrasound B images or Doppler images, and so on. The following first describes a method 200 for measuring liver and kidney echo comparison according to an embodiment of the present application with reference to FIG. 2. As shown in FIG. 2, the method 200 for measuring liver and kidney echo contrast may include the following steps:

In step S210, an ultrasound is transmitted to the liver and kidney of the target object and the ultrasound echo of the liver and kidney is received, and ultrasound image processing is performed based on the ultrasound echo of the liver and kidney to obtain an ultrasound image.

In the embodiment of the present application, the target object may be a patient whose liver and kidney echo contrast measurement is to be performed. An ultrasound device may be used to transmit ultrasonic waves to the liver and kidney parts of the target object and receive ultrasound echoes from the liver and kidney parts. Based on the ultrasonic echo, ultrasonic image processing can be performed to obtain an ultrasonic image. Here, the ultrasonic image processing may include various general links such as analog signal gain compensation, beam synthesis, quadrature demodulation, digital signal gain compensation, amplitude calculation, image enhancement, etc., which are required for conventional ultrasonic image processing. Specifically, the ultrasonic device transmits an ultrasonic signal through the transducer element of the probe to convert the electrical signal into an acoustic signal and transmits it to the target object; then the transducer element of the probe converts the acoustic signal of the ultrasonic echo into an electrical signal; The signal is filtered and amplified by the analog circuit (that is, gain compensation), and then converted into a digital signal by the analog-to-digital converter (ADC) (that is, analog-to-digital conversion); further, the data of each array element channel is subjected to traveling beam forming to obtain the radio frequency The signal (ie beam synthesis), that is, the RF signal, is then subjected to quadrature demodulation to obtain I/Q (in-phase/quadrature) two orthogonal signals and sent to the subsequent imaging processing module (ie, quadrature demodulation).

In the embodiment of the present application, the use of gain compensation for the received ultrasonic echo signal can attenuate the subsequent processing problem caused by the decrease of the signal strength with the depth. The signal after this processing is actually an analog signal. Therefore, in order to improve the signal processing efficiency and reduce the complexity of the hardware platform, it is necessary to use an analog-to-digital converter to convert the analog echo signal into a digital echo signal. After the channel data after the analog-digital conversion is completed, the digital beam synthesis can be performed to form the scan line data according to the delay difference caused by the difference between the focus point and the channel distance. The data processing performed before this can be collectively referred to as the front end deal with. The data obtained after the completion of this stage can be called radio frequency signal data, that is, RF data. The reason why it is called "radio frequency" means that the signal contains the probe receiving clock frequency, and the carrier frequency is just in the radio frequency band of the communication field. After the RF data is acquired, the signal carrier is removed through IQ demodulation, the organizational structure information contained in the signal is extracted, and filtering is performed to remove noise. At this time, the acquired signal is the baseband signal (IQ data). All the processing required from the radio frequency signal processing to the baseband signal can be collectively referred to as mid-end processing. Finally, obtain the intensity of the baseband signal and pass its gray level through logarithmic compression and gray conversion to obtain an ultrasound image. The processing completed at this time can be collectively referred to as back-end processing. So far, a frame of ultrasound images can be obtained for display.

Next, referring to FIG. 2, the subsequent step S220 of the method 200 for measuring liver and kidney echo comparison according to an embodiment of the present application will be described.

In step S220, the location of the liver tissue area and the location of the kidney tissue area are respectively acquired based on the ultrasound image, and the location of the liver tissue area and the kidney tissue area are respectively obtained based on the acquired location of the liver tissue area and the kidney tissue area. The tissue area emits ultrasound and receives ultrasound echoes.

In the embodiment of the present application, the comparison of liver and kidney echoes is not performed based on the difference in brightness of the liver and kidney parts in the ultrasound images of the liver and kidney parts obtained in step S210, but is based on the ultrasound images of the liver and kidney parts obtained in step S210. Get the location of the liver tissue area and the location of the kidney tissue area (as shown in Figure 3A, the small white box in the figure is the location of the liver tissue area, and the small gray box is the location of the kidney tissue area), and then based on the obtained Re-transmit the ultrasound to obtain the respective ultrasound echoes of the liver tissue area and the kidney tissue area, and compare the liver and kidney echoes on the basis of the respective ultrasound echoes of the liver tissue area and the kidney tissue area. In this way, the respective ultrasound echoes of the liver tissue region and the kidney tissue region are not the signals after the aforementioned ultrasound image processing, so it is possible to avoid the unequal processing of the ultrasound echo signals at various positions in the ultrasound image processing, so as to obtain more accuracy. Comparison of liver and kidney echo results. Wherein, the aforementioned liver tissue area may be the first target area including liver tissue, the aforementioned kidney tissue area may be the second target area including kidney tissue, and the depth of the first target area and the second target area may be the same. Further eliminate the influence of depth factors on the ultrasonic echo (for example, the focusing of the ultrasonic probe may also cause the uneven sound energy at different depths) to obtain more accurate comparison measurement results.

Here, it should be noted that in an example of the present application, the above-mentioned "comparison of liver and kidney echoes based on the respective ultrasound echoes of the liver tissue area and the kidney tissue area" may refer to the direct use of liver tissue The ultrasound echoes of the region and the kidney tissue region are compared for liver and kidney echo. In this example, the ultrasound echo signals of the liver tissue region and the kidney tissue region are not processed by any link in the above-mentioned ultrasound image processing process. They are the most primitive ultrasound. The echo signal, therefore, there is no problem of inequality in the processing of ultrasonic echo signals at various positions in the ultrasonic image processing. In another example of the present application, the above-mentioned “compare liver and kidney echoes on the basis of the respective ultrasound echoes of the liver tissue region and the kidney tissue region” may also refer to the comparison of the liver tissue region and the kidney tissue region. The respective ultrasonic echoes undergo signal processing different from the aforementioned ultrasonic image processing, so as to minimize or avoid the disparity in the processing of the respective ultrasonic echoes of the liver tissue area and the kidney tissue area. Here, "signal processing of the ultrasound echoes of the liver tissue region and the kidney tissue region is different from the aforementioned ultrasound image processing" may mean that the process of processing the ultrasound echoes of the liver tissue region and the kidney tissue region only includes A part of the foregoing ultrasonic image processing process (this part of the processing may be the same as or different from the foregoing ultrasonic image processing process, which will be described in detail in the following embodiments).

Next, referring to FIG. 2, the subsequent step S230 of the method 200 for measuring liver and kidney echo comparison according to an embodiment of the present application will be described.

In step S230, signal processing is performed on the ultrasound echoes of the liver tissue region and the ultrasound echoes of the kidney tissue region respectively to obtain a first ultrasound signal and a second ultrasound signal, the first ultrasound signal and the ultrasound echo The second ultrasonic signals are all ultrasonic signals with amplitude information and phase information.

As mentioned above, in the embodiments of the present application, liver and kidney echo comparisons can be performed on the basis of the original ultrasound echo signals of the liver tissue region and the kidney tissue region, so that the ultrasound image processing can prevent the ultrasound echo signals from each location. The treatment is not the same, so that more accurate liver and kidney echo comparison results can be obtained. Preferably, the ultrasound echoes in the liver tissue region and the ultrasound echoes in the kidney tissue region can be individually processed for signal processing, which is different from the aforementioned existing ultrasound image processing. For example, the signal processing may include at least one of the following Items: gain compensation, analog-to-digital conversion, beam synthesis, quadrature demodulation, baseband signal strength calculation, and gray-scale logarithmic compression (these processes have been described in the previous section and will not be repeated here). In other words, the signal processing at least does not include the last gray-scale conversion step in the aforementioned ultrasonic image processing. In other words, the signal output in any link before the gray-scale conversion link (such as the aforementioned RF data, IQ data, or even the data after the analog-to-digital conversion before the RF data, etc.) can be used as a basis for liver and kidney echo comparison. These data generally have amplitude information and phase information, which provide rich information for liver and kidney echo comparison. Compared with ultrasound image-based liver and kidney echo comparison (that is, the grayscale data after grayscale conversion is used for comparison), it The rich information contained can get more accurate liver and kidney echo comparison results. In this embodiment, the process of processing the ultrasound echoes of the liver tissue region and the kidney tissue region only includes a part of the foregoing ultrasound image processing process. As described above, this part of the process can be the same as the foregoing ultrasound image processing process. The same or different in the same situation will not be described again, and the different situations will be described below.

In the embodiment of the present application, the aforementioned signal processing may include gain compensation, and the gain compensation may include gain compensation of an analog signal and/or gain compensation of a digital signal. The effect of gain compensation can be the final superposition of multiple gain compensation links. Gain compensation may occur before, after, or both before and after the beamforming link. Because the greater the depth of the area, the greater the attenuation of the ultrasound signal and the weaker the energy. Therefore, in the aforementioned conventional ultrasound image processing process, different multiples of gain compensation are often used for different depths. Generally, the deeper the depth, the greater the gain (as shown in Figure 4A). ) To ensure the uniformity of image brightness in the depth direction. However, in an example of the present application, the same compensation parameter can be used for different depths, that is, the gain compensation parameter is fixed in the depth direction (as shown in FIG. 4B), so that it can be more realistic Reflect the attenuation of ultrasound echo through different tissues at different depths, so as to more truly reflect the echo difference of liver and kidney tissues. In another example of the present application, the gain compensation may include a first gain compensation and a second gain compensation, wherein the compensation parameter used in the first gain compensation increases as the depth increases (as shown in FIG. 4C (Shown), the compensation parameter used in the second gain compensation decreases as the depth increases (as shown in FIG. 4D). In other words, the first gain compensation and the second gain compensation adopt compensation parameters with opposite changing trends, which is equivalent to adopting the same compensation parameters for different depths, so as to more truly reflect the echo difference of liver and kidney tissues. The advantage of this method of gain compensation first and then gain reverse compensation is that it can share a certain gain compensation link with conventional ultrasound image processing, saving hardware resources.

In the embodiment of the present application, the aforementioned signal processing may include quadrature demodulation. The purpose of the quadrature demodulation link is to extract the effective frequency component frequency shift of the ultrasonic echo signal to the vicinity of the baseband zero frequency, which can further reduce the data sampling rate and facilitate subsequent calculation of the signal amplitude. Because the high frequency part attenuates faster, in order to improve the signal-to-noise ratio of the deep image as much as possible, conventional ultrasound image processing often uses different demodulation center frequencies at different depths. Generally, the greater the depth, the lower the demodulation frequency. However, in an example of this application, the same demodulation frequency can be used for different depths, which can more completely and accurately reflect the loss of different frequency components of the ultrasonic echo within a certain frequency range, and also help more accurately Calculate the energy difference of the ultrasonic echo. Generally speaking, the higher the degree of tissue fat, the faster the ultrasound attenuation with frequency. Therefore, extracting the information related to the frequency distribution of the ultrasound echo can also reflect the degree of tissue fat. In another example of the present application, the size of the demodulation frequency used in quadrature demodulation can also be slightly changed with the size of the depth. For example, the size of the demodulation frequency that changes with the size of the depth is smaller than a certain setting. Set threshold. Such a slightly changed demodulation frequency can still accurately reflect the degree of loss of different frequency components of the ultrasonic echo within a certain frequency range, and also help to more accurately calculate the energy difference of the ultrasonic echo.

In the foregoing embodiments, the signal processing performed on the ultrasound echoes of the liver tissue region and the ultrasound echoes of the kidney tissue region is described. Based on such signal processing, the respective signals of the liver tissue region and the kidney tissue region can be obtained. In order to distinguish the processed ultrasonic echo signals from each other, they are called the first ultrasonic signal and the second ultrasonic signal, respectively. Wherein, the first ultrasound signal is the processed ultrasound echo of the liver tissue area, and the second ultrasound signal is the processed ultrasound echo of the kidney tissue area. The processed ultrasound echo signals (that is, the first ultrasound signal and the second ultrasound signal) are ultrasound signals with amplitude information and phase information, which can be used to compare liver and kidney echoes.

Next, referring to FIG. 2 continuously, the subsequent step S240 of the method 200 for measuring liver and kidney echo comparison according to an embodiment of the present application will be described.

In step S240, the echo difference between the liver tissue and the kidney tissue of the target object is determined based on the first ultrasound signal and the second ultrasound signal.

As mentioned above, the first ultrasound signal and the second ultrasound signal used as the basis for the comparison of liver and kidney echoes are both signals with amplitude information and phase information. Therefore, the comparison result of the liver and kidney echoes of the target object (that is, the echo difference between the liver tissue and the kidney tissue of the target object) can be obtained by comparing the first ultrasound signal and the second ultrasound signal. In an example, the ratio and/or difference between the parameters of the first ultrasound signal and the parameters of the second ultrasound signal in a certain target area may be determined to serve as the liver tissue of the target object and The echo difference between kidney tissues. Wherein, the parameter may include such as amplitude, frequency, phase, etc., for example, the ratio and/or difference between the parameter of the first ultrasonic signal and the parameter of the second ultrasonic signal includes at least one of the following: The amplitude ratio, amplitude distribution standard deviation ratio, center frequency ratio, frequency distribution standard deviation ratio, amplitude difference, center frequency difference, and amplitude distribution standard deviation difference between the first ultrasonic signal and the second ultrasonic signal.

When calculating the comparison between the parameters of the first ultrasound signal and the parameters of the second ultrasound signal in a certain target area, the average or median value of each local point data in the target area can be taken as the representative result. Comparison calculation. That is, the value of any parameter of the first ultrasonic signal is the mean or median value of the parameter of the multiple signals included in the first ultrasonic signal, and the value of any parameter of the second ultrasonic signal Is the mean value or the median value of the parameter of the multiple signals included in the second ultrasound signal. For example, taking amplitude calculation as an example, you can take the amplitude average or the median value of each local point data in the target area as its representative result to participate in the comparison calculation. In addition, it is also possible to extract image distribution related parameters based on the first ultrasound signal and the second ultrasound signal respectively, and compare the image distribution related parameters. Wherein, the image distribution related parameters include histogram information and/or gray-scale travel statistical information. In general, compared to the conventional use of gray-scale converted data (ie ultrasound image data) as the basis for liver and kidney echo comparison, using the data of any link before grayscale conversion as the basis for liver and kidney echo comparison can not only compare the amplitude, but also The comparison of richer information such as frequency spectrum and phase can be performed, so that more accurate liver and kidney echo comparison results can be obtained.

Finally, after obtaining the echo difference between the liver tissue and the kidney tissue of the target object, the echo difference result can be displayed on the ultrasound image obtained in step S210. Exemplarily, the parameters compared between the first ultrasound signal and the second ultrasound signal and the numerical results obtained by the comparison can be directly displayed on the ultrasound image (as shown in FIG. 3B), so that the user can intuitively understand the liver Specific data of renal echo comparison results. Exemplarily, the respective values of the same parameters of the first ultrasound signal and the second ultrasound signal may also be displayed in their respective tissue regions as image attributes, and different values may be displayed using different image attributes. Wherein, the image attribute can be color, line thickness or any other suitable image attribute. For example, the value of a certain parameter of the first ultrasound signal is displayed on the ultrasound image in the first color, and the value of the parameter of the second ultrasound signal is displayed on the ultrasound image in the second color. Different colors can correspond to Different value sizes. Alternatively, the value of a certain parameter of the first ultrasound signal is displayed on the ultrasound image as a first line, and the value of the parameter of the second ultrasound signal is displayed on the ultrasound image as a second line. The first line and the second line are displayed on the ultrasound image. The thickness of each line represents the value of the parameter of the first ultrasonic signal and the second ultrasonic signal. Based on this display, the user can intuitively understand the relationship between liver and kidney echo contrast. In other examples, any other suitable method may also be used to display the echo difference between the liver tissue and the kidney tissue of the target object, which is not limited in this application.

The above exemplarily shows a liver-kidney echo comparison method 200 according to an embodiment of the present application. The method uses the original ultrasound echo signals with amplitude and phase information in the liver tissue area and the kidney tissue area as the judgment of the liver and kidney echo. The basis of the comparison is to avoid the influence of the ultrasound image processing process on the comparison results of the liver and kidney echoes, so as to obtain more accurate comparison results of the liver and kidney echoes.

Hereinafter, a method 500 for measuring liver and kidney echo contrast according to another embodiment of the present application will be described with reference to FIG. 5. As shown in Fig. 5, the method 500 for measuring liver and kidney echo contrast may include the following steps:

In step S510, the ultrasound echo of the liver tissue area and the ultrasound echo of the kidney tissue area are acquired.

In the embodiment of the present application, the liver and kidney echoes are not compared based on the brightness difference of the liver and kidney in the ultrasound image of the liver and kidney, but the ultrasound echoes of the liver tissue area and the kidney tissue area are obtained separately, and the The liver and kidney echoes are compared based on the ultrasound echoes of the liver tissue area and the kidney tissue area. In this way, the respective ultrasound echoes of the liver tissue region and the kidney tissue region are not the signals after the aforementioned ultrasound image processing, so it is possible to avoid the unequal processing of the ultrasound echo signals at various positions in the ultrasound image processing, so as to obtain more accuracy. The comparison results of liver and kidney echoes, as mentioned above, in which there are many ways to obtain the ultrasound echo of the liver tissue region of the target object and the ultrasound echo of the kidney tissue region of the target object, including but not limited to the following Any method of obtaining:

In one example, the way to obtain the ultrasound echo of the liver tissue area may be: obtaining a first ultrasound image including a slice plane of the liver tissue, and determining the first target area where the liver tissue is located based on the first ultrasound image; The first target area transmits ultrasonic waves and receives echoes to obtain ultrasonic echoes of the liver tissue area. Similarly, the way to acquire the ultrasound echo of the kidney tissue area may be: acquiring a second ultrasound image including a cut surface of the kidney tissue, and determining the second target area where the kidney tissue is located based on the second ultrasound image, and comparing the second ultrasound image. The target area emits ultrasound and receives echoes to obtain ultrasound echoes of the kidney tissue area. In this example, the target area where the liver and/or kidney are located is determined based on the ultrasound images including the slices of liver and/or kidney tissue, and the target area is transmitted and received by ultrasound, so that the transmission and reception is faster and the amount of data is smaller. Such a method for obtaining liver and kidney ultrasound echoes has high accuracy. Wherein, the first ultrasound image and the second ultrasound image may be the same ultrasound image, that is, the liver tissue section and the kidney tissue section are on the same ultrasound image at the same time. At this time, the target area where the liver and kidney are located can be determined based on the ultrasound image, and Perform ultrasonic transmission and echo reception on the target area. In addition, the first ultrasound image and the second ultrasound image may be independent ultrasound images. In this case, the determination of the target area, the ultrasound transmission, and the echo reception can be implemented separately. Further, the depths of the first target area and the second target area where the determined liver and kidney tissues are respectively located can be the same, so that the influence of depth factors on the ultrasound echo can be further eliminated, as described above.

In another example, the way to obtain the ultrasound echo of the liver tissue region may be: transmitting ultrasound to the liver tissue and receiving the ultrasound echo as the ultrasound echo of the liver tissue region. Similarly, the way to obtain the ultrasound echo of the kidney tissue region may be: transmitting ultrasound to the kidney tissue and receiving the ultrasound echo as the ultrasound echo of the kidney tissue region. In this example, there is no need to determine the target area of the liver and kidney tissue based on the ultrasound image of the liver and kidney tissue to transmit ultrasound and receive the echo, but directly transmit the ultrasound to the liver and kidney tissue to obtain the ultrasound echo of the liver and kidney tissue respectively. wave. This method of obtaining liver and kidney ultrasound echo is faster.

In another example, the way to obtain the ultrasound echo of the liver tissue region may be: transmitting ultrasound to the liver and kidney of the target object and receiving the ultrasound echo of the liver and kidney, and obtaining the liver based on the ultrasound echo of the liver and kidney. The ultrasound image of the kidney area, the location of the liver tissue area and the location of the kidney tissue area are determined from the ultrasound image of the liver and kidney area, and the ultrasound return from the liver and kidney area based on the location of the liver tissue area and the location of the kidney tissue area In the wave, the ultrasound echo in the liver tissue area and the ultrasound echo in the kidney tissue area are determined. Or, transmit ultrasound to the liver and kidney of the target object, and receive the ultrasound echo of the liver and kidney, and directly extract the ultrasound echo of the liver tissue region and the ultrasound echo of the kidney tissue region from the ultrasound echo of the liver and kidney region. Wave, thereby effectively reducing the number of ultrasonic transmission and reception.

In step S520, signal processing is performed on the ultrasound echo of the liver tissue region and the ultrasound echo of the kidney tissue region to obtain a first ultrasound signal and a second ultrasound signal, respectively, and the signal processing includes at least the following: One item: gain compensation, analog-to-digital conversion, beam synthesis, quadrature demodulation, baseband signal strength calculation, and gray-scale logarithmic compression, and the first ultrasonic signal and the second ultrasonic signal have not undergone gray-scale Conversion processing.

Similar to step S230 in the method 200 described above with reference to FIG. 2, in step S520, the ultrasound echo in the liver tissue region and the ultrasound echo in the kidney tissue region are each subjected to signal processing, which is different from the foregoing existing signal processing. Ultrasonic image processing, which at least does not include the final gray-scale conversion link. For example, the signal processing may include at least one of the following: gain compensation, analog-to-digital conversion, beam synthesis, quadrature demodulation, baseband signal strength calculation, and gray-scale logarithmic compression (these processes have been described in the previous section, I won’t repeat them here). After the signal processing, the processed ultrasound echoes of the liver tissue area, namely the first ultrasound signal, and the processed ultrasound echoes of the kidney tissue area, namely the second ultrasound signal, can be obtained respectively, because the signal processing at least does not include ultrasound. The final gray-scale conversion step in image processing, therefore, neither the first ultrasonic signal nor the second ultrasonic signal has undergone gray-scale conversion processing. Therefore, in this embodiment, the signal output by any link before the gray-scale conversion link (such as the aforementioned RF data, IQ data, or even the data after the analog-to-digital conversion before the RF data, etc.) is still used as the liver and kidney. The basis for echo comparison. These data generally have amplitude information and phase information, which provide rich information for liver and kidney echo comparison. Compared with ultrasound image-based liver and kidney echo comparison (that is, the grayscale data after grayscale conversion is used for comparison), it The rich information contained can get more accurate liver and kidney echo comparison results.

In addition, similar to the signal processing described in the method 200 described above with reference to FIG. 2, the signal processing described in step S520 may include gain compensation, which can use the same compensation parameters for different depths, which can be more realistic. It can reflect the attenuation of ultrasound echo through different tissues at different depths, so as to more truly reflect the echo difference of liver and kidney tissues. Alternatively, the gain compensation may include a first gain compensation and a second gain compensation, wherein the compensation parameter used in the first gain compensation increases with increasing depth, and the compensation used in the second gain compensation The parameter decreases as the depth increases. In other words, the first gain compensation and the second gain compensation adopt compensation parameters with opposite changing trends, which is equivalent to adopting the same compensation parameters for different depths, so as to more truly reflect the echo difference of liver and kidney tissues. The advantage of this method of gain compensation first and then gain reverse compensation is that it can share a certain gain compensation link with conventional ultrasound image processing, saving hardware resources.

In addition, similar to the signal processing described in the method 200 described above with reference to FIG. 2, the signal processing described in step S520 may include quadrature demodulation, which can use the same demodulation for different depths. Frequency, which can more completely and accurately reflect the loss degree of different frequency components of the ultrasonic echo within a certain frequency range, and also help to calculate the energy difference of the ultrasonic echo more accurately. Alternatively, the demodulation frequency used in the quadrature demodulation can also be slightly changed with the depth. Such a slightly changed demodulation frequency can still accurately reflect the different frequency components of the ultrasonic echo within a certain frequency range. The degree of loss also helps to calculate the energy difference of ultrasonic echo more accurately.

In step S530, the echo difference between the liver tissue and the kidney tissue of the target object is determined based on the first ultrasound signal and the second ultrasound signal.

Similar to step S240 in the method 200 described above with reference to FIG. 2, in step S530, the liver and kidney echo comparison results of the target object (that is, the comparison result of the target object's liver and kidney) can be obtained by comparing the first ultrasound signal with the second ultrasound signal. The echo difference between liver tissue and kidney tissue). In an example, the ratio and/or difference between the parameters of the first ultrasound signal and the parameters of the second ultrasound signal in a certain target area may be determined to serve as the liver tissue of the target object and The echo difference between kidney tissues. Wherein, the parameter may include such as amplitude, frequency, phase, etc., for example, the ratio and/or difference between the parameter of the first ultrasonic signal and the parameter of the second ultrasonic signal includes at least one of the following: The amplitude ratio, amplitude distribution standard deviation ratio, center frequency ratio, frequency distribution standard deviation ratio, amplitude difference, center frequency difference, and amplitude distribution standard deviation difference between the first ultrasonic signal and the second ultrasonic signal. When calculating the comparison between the parameters of the first ultrasound signal and the parameters of the second ultrasound signal in a certain target area, the average or median value of each local point data in the target area can be taken as the representative result. Comparison calculation. For example, taking amplitude calculation as an example, the amplitude average value or the amplitude median value of each local point data in the target area can be taken as the representative result to participate in the comparison calculation. In addition, it is also possible to extract image distribution related parameters based on the first ultrasound signal and the second ultrasound signal respectively, and compare the image distribution related parameters. Wherein, the image distribution related parameters include histogram information and/or gray-scale travel statistical information. In general, compared with the conventional use of gray-scale converted data (ie, ultrasound image data) as the basis for liver and kidney echo comparison, using the data of any link before grayscale conversion as the basis for liver and kidney echo comparison can not only perform amplitude comparison, but also The comparison of richer information such as frequency spectrum and phase can be performed, so that more accurate liver and kidney echo comparison results can be obtained.

The above exemplarily shows a liver-kidney echo contrast measurement method 500 according to another embodiment of the present application. This method uses gain compensation, analog-to-digital conversion, beam synthesis, and beam synthesis after acquiring the respective ultrasound echoes of the liver and kidney tissue regions. At least one of quadrature demodulation, baseband signal intensity calculation, and gray-scale logarithmic compression is used to process the ultrasound echo, and the processed ultrasound echo signal including the amplitude and phase and other rich information is used as the judgment of the liver and kidney The basis of echo comparison can obtain more accurate liver and kidney echo comparison results.

Hereinafter, a method 600 for measuring liver and kidney echo comparison according to another embodiment of the present application will be described with reference to FIG. 6. As shown in FIG. 6, the method 600 for measuring liver and kidney echo contrast may include the following steps:

In step S610, an ultrasound is transmitted to the liver and kidney of the target object and the ultrasound echo of the liver and kidney is received, and ultrasound image processing is performed based on the ultrasound echo of the liver and kidney to obtain an ultrasound image.

Step S610 in the liver-kidney echo comparison measurement method 600 according to another embodiment of the present application described with reference to FIG. 6 and step S210 in the liver-kidney echo comparison measurement method 200 according to the embodiment of the present application described with reference to FIG. 2 Similarly, for the sake of brevity, I will not repeat them here.

In step S620, the ultrasound echo of the liver tissue region and the ultrasound echo of the kidney tissue region are acquired based on the ultrasound echoes of the liver and kidney parts.

In the embodiment of the present application, the ultrasound echoes of the liver and kidney parts received in step S610 can be stored as two channels, one channel is used for ultrasound image processing (as described in step S610) to obtain ultrasound images, and the other channel is used for subsequent use. Contrast measurement of liver and kidney echo. Specifically, the ultrasound echo of the liver tissue region and the ultrasound echo of the kidney tissue region can be obtained from the ultrasound echoes of the liver and kidney parts, which can be used as a basis for comparing the liver and kidney echoes of the target object. The advantage of storing the ultrasound echoes of the liver and kidney parts as two separate processes is that simultaneous ultrasound images can be obtained while the liver and kidney echo contrast measurement is performed.

In step S630, signal processing is performed on the ultrasound echo of the liver tissue region and the ultrasound echo of the kidney tissue region to obtain a first ultrasound signal and a second ultrasound signal respectively, and the signal processing includes at least the following: One item: gain compensation, analog-to-digital conversion, beam synthesis, quadrature demodulation, baseband signal strength calculation, and gray-scale logarithmic compression, and the first ultrasonic signal and the second ultrasonic signal have not undergone gray-scale Conversion processing.

Step S630 in the liver-kidney echo comparison measurement method 600 according to another embodiment of the present application described with reference to FIG. 6 and step S520 in the liver-kidney echo comparison measurement method 500 according to the embodiment of the present application described with reference to FIG. 5 Similarly, for the sake of brevity, I will not repeat them here.

In step S640, the echo difference between the liver tissue and the kidney tissue of the target object is determined based on the first ultrasound signal and the second ultrasound signal.

Step S640 in the liver-kidney echo comparison measurement method 600 according to another embodiment of the present application described with reference to FIG. 6 and step S530 in the liver-kidney echo comparison measurement method 500 according to the embodiment of the present application described with reference to FIG. 5 Similarly, for the sake of brevity, I will not repeat them here.

In step S650, the difference between the ultrasound image and the echo is displayed.

In the embodiment of the present application, as described above, the numerical result of the echo difference can be directly displayed on the ultrasound image, so that the user can intuitively understand the data of the specific liver and kidney echo comparison result. Alternatively, the respective values of the compared parameters of the echo differences can be displayed in their respective tissue regions as image attributes, and different values adopt different image attributes (wherein, the image attributes can be color, line thickness, or any other suitable Image attributes) for display. Based on this display, the user can intuitively understand the relationship between liver and kidney echo contrast.

The above exemplarily shows a liver-kidney echo comparison measurement method 600 according to another embodiment of the present application. The method stores the ultrasound echoes of the liver and kidney parts as two channels, and performs ultrasound image processing all the way to obtain ultrasound images. One way is used for the subsequent liver-kidney echo contrast measurement, so that simultaneous ultrasound images can be obtained for display while the liver-kidney echo contrast measurement is performed, and because gain compensation, analog-to-digital conversion, beam synthesis, quadrature demodulation, At least one of baseband signal strength calculation and gray-scale logarithmic compression is used to process the ultrasound echo, and the processed ultrasound echo signal including rich information such as amplitude and phase is used as the basis for judging liver and kidney echo contrast, Therefore, more accurate liver and kidney echo comparison results can be obtained.

Hereinafter, a method 700 for measuring liver and kidney echo comparison according to another embodiment of the present application will be described with reference to FIG. 7. As shown in FIG. 7, the method 700 for measuring liver and kidney echo contrast may include the following steps:

In step S710, an ultrasound is transmitted to the liver and kidney of the target object and the ultrasound echo of the liver and kidney is received.

In step S720, ultrasound image processing is performed based on the ultrasound echo of the liver and kidney to obtain an ultrasound image, wherein the ultrasound image processing at least includes gain compensation, and the gain compensation uses the same compensation parameter for different depths, or The gain compensation includes a first gain compensation and a second gain compensation. The compensation parameter used in the first gain compensation increases as the depth increases, and the compensation parameter used in the second gain compensation increases as the depth increases. Increase and decrease.

In step S730, the echo difference between the liver tissue and the kidney tissue of the target object is determined based on the ultrasound image.

In the method 700 for measuring liver and kidney echo contrast according to another embodiment of the present application, the echo difference between the liver tissue and the kidney tissue of the target object is still determined based on the ultrasound image. However, what has changed is that the ultrasonic image processing performed to obtain the ultrasonic image is different from the conventional ultrasonic image processing. Specifically, unlike conventional ultrasound image processing, the greater the depth, the greater the gain compensation parameter. The gain compensation included in the ultrasound image processing in the method 700 uses the same compensation parameter for different depths, or first gain compensation (the compensation parameter increases with the depth Increase), and then gain reverse compensation (compensation parameters decrease with the increase of depth), which can more truly reflect the attenuation of ultrasound echo through different tissues at different depths, and thus more truly reflect the attenuation of different tissues at different depths. The echo difference of liver and kidney tissue.

Hereinafter, a method 800 for measuring liver and kidney echo comparison according to another embodiment of the present application will be described with reference to FIG. 8. As shown in Fig. 8, the method 800 for measuring liver and kidney echo contrast may include the following steps:

In step S810, an ultrasound is transmitted to the liver and kidney of the target object and the ultrasound echo of the liver and kidney is received.

In step S820, ultrasonic image processing is performed based on the ultrasonic echo of the liver and kidney to obtain an ultrasonic image, wherein the ultrasonic image processing includes at least orthogonal demodulation, and the orthogonal demodulation uses the same solution for different depths. The frequency modulation, or the demodulation frequency used in the quadrature demodulation, varies with the depth by less than the threshold.

In step S830, the echo difference between the liver tissue and the kidney tissue of the target object is determined based on the ultrasound image.

In the method 800 for measuring liver and kidney echo contrast according to still another embodiment of the present application, the echo difference between the liver tissue and the kidney tissue of the target object is still determined based on the ultrasound image. However, what has changed is that the ultrasonic image processing performed to obtain the ultrasonic image is different from the conventional ultrasonic image processing. Specifically, unlike conventional ultrasound image processing, the larger the depth, the lower the demodulation frequency. The quadrature demodulation included in the ultrasound image processing in the method 800 uses the same demodulation frequency for different depths, or the size of the demodulation frequency varies with the depth. The size of the depth is slightly changed (the amount of the demodulation frequency that changes with the size of the depth is less than a certain set threshold), which can more completely and accurately reflect the loss of different frequency components of the ultrasonic echo within a certain frequency range. It also helps to calculate the energy difference of the ultrasonic echo more accurately.

The above exemplarily shows the liver and kidney echo contrast measurement methods 700 and 800 according to the embodiments of the present application. The methods 700 and 800 are still based on ultrasound images to determine the echo difference between the liver tissue and the kidney tissue of the target object. However, what has changed is that the ultrasound image processing performed to obtain the ultrasound image is different from the conventional ultrasound image processing, and these different processing enable a more realistic and accurate calculation of the echo difference of the liver and kidney tissues. It should be understood that although the methods 700 and 800 are described separately, in practical applications, the two can also be used in combination. In addition, other links in conventional ultrasound image processing can also be changed, so that the ultrasound image obtained after processing can calculate the echo difference of liver and kidney tissues more realistically and accurately.

The above exemplarily shows the liver-kidney echo contrast measurement methods 200, 500, 600, 700, and 800 according to the embodiments of the present application. In general, these methods use the amplitude and phase information of the liver tissue region and the kidney tissue region. The original ultrasound echo signal is used as the basis for judging the liver and kidney echo contrast, avoiding the influence of the ultrasound image processing on the liver and kidney echo comparison results, so that more accurate liver and kidney echo comparison results can be obtained; or the ultrasound image is still used to judge the liver and kidney. The basis of echo comparison, but in the process of obtaining ultrasound images, certain methods are used to make ultrasound image processing equal to the processing of ultrasound echo signals at various positions, so that more accurate liver and kidney echo comparison results can be obtained.

The following describes a schematic block diagram of a liver-kidney echo comparison measuring device 900 according to another embodiment of the present application with reference to FIG. 9. FIG. 9 shows a schematic block diagram of a measuring device 900 for comparing liver and kidney echoes according to an embodiment of the present application. The measuring device 900 for liver and kidney echo comparison includes a memory 910 and a processor 920.

The memory 910 stores programs for implementing corresponding steps in the liver and kidney echo contrast measurement methods 200, 500, 600, 700, and 800 according to the embodiments of the present application. The processor 920 is configured to run a program stored in the memory 910 to execute the corresponding steps of the liver-kidney echo contrast measurement method 200, 500, 600, 700, and 800 according to the embodiment of the present application.

In addition, according to an embodiment of the present application, a storage medium is also provided, and program instructions are stored on the storage medium, and the program instructions are executed by a computer or a processor (such as the aforementioned processor 103 or processor 920). It is used to perform the corresponding steps of the liver-kidney echo contrast measurement methods 200, 500, 600, 700, and 800 in the embodiments of the present application. The storage medium may include, for example, a memory card of a smart phone, a storage component of a tablet computer, a hard disk of a personal computer, a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), a portable compact disk read-only memory (CD-ROM), USB memory, or any combination of the above storage media. The computer-readable storage medium may be any combination of one or more computer-readable storage media.

In addition, according to the embodiment of the present application, a computer program is also provided, and the computer program can be stored in a cloud or a local storage medium. When the computer program is run by a computer or a processor, it is used to execute the corresponding steps of the liver-kidney echo contrast measurement method in the embodiment of the present application.

In addition, according to the embodiment of the present application, a medical system is also provided, which can implement the liver and kidney echo contrast measurement methods 200, 500, 600, 700, and 800 described above according to the embodiment of the present application. The medical system may include a liver-kidney echo contrast measurement device 900 according to an embodiment of the present application. Those skilled in the art can understand the structure and specific operations of the medical system according to the embodiment of the present application based on the above-described measuring device 900 for comparing liver and kidney echoes according to the embodiment of the present application. For the sake of brevity, details are not repeated here. Illustratively, the medical system may be an ultrasound system.

Based on the above description, the liver-kidney echo contrast measurement method, equipment, medical system, and storage medium according to the embodiments of the present application use the original ultrasound echo signals with amplitude and phase information in the liver tissue area and the kidney tissue area as the judgment liver The basis of renal echo comparison is to avoid the impact of ultrasound image processing on the comparison of liver and kidney echoes, so as to obtain more accurate comparison results of liver and kidney echo; or ultrasound images are still used as the basis for judging liver and kidney echo contrast, but when obtaining ultrasound In the image process, a certain method is adopted to make the ultrasonic image processing equal to the ultrasonic echo signal processing at each position, so that more accurate liver and kidney echo comparison results can be obtained.

Although the exemplary embodiments have been described herein with reference to the accompanying drawings, it should be understood that the above-described exemplary embodiments are merely exemplary, and are not intended to limit the scope of the present application thereto. Those of ordinary skill in the art can make various changes and modifications therein without departing from the scope and spirit of the present application. All these changes and modifications are intended to be included within the scope of the application as claimed in the appended claims.

A person of ordinary skill in the art may realize that the units and algorithm steps of the examples described in combination with the embodiments disclosed herein can be implemented by electronic hardware or a combination of computer software and electronic hardware. Whether these functions are performed by hardware or software depends on the specific application and design constraint conditions of the technical solution. Professionals and technicians can use different methods for each specific application to implement the described functions, but such implementation should not be considered beyond the scope of this application.

In the several embodiments provided in this application, it should be understood that the disclosed device and method may be implemented in other ways. For example, the device embodiments described above are only illustrative. For example, the division of the units is only a logical function division, and there may be other divisions in actual implementation, for example, multiple units or components may be combined or It can be integrated into another device, or some features can be ignored or not implemented.

In the instructions provided here, a lot of specific details are explained. However, it can be understood that the embodiments of the present application can be practiced without these specific details. In some instances, well-known methods, structures, and technologies are not shown in detail, so as not to obscure the understanding of this specification.

Similarly, it should be understood that, in order to simplify this application and help understand one or more of the various aspects of the invention, in the description of the exemplary embodiments of the present application, the various features of the present application are sometimes grouped together into a single embodiment or figure. , Or in its description. However, the method of this application should not be interpreted as reflecting the intention that the claimed application requires more features than the features explicitly recorded in each claim. To be more precise, as reflected in the corresponding claims, the invention lies in the fact that the corresponding technical problems can be solved with features that are less than all the features of a single disclosed embodiment. Therefore, the claims following the specific embodiment are thus explicitly incorporated into the specific embodiment, wherein each claim itself serves as a separate embodiment of the present application.

Those skilled in the art can understand that, in addition to mutual exclusion between the features, any combination of all features disclosed in this specification (including the accompanying claims, abstract, and drawings) and any method or device disclosed in this manner can be used. Processes or units are combined. Unless expressly stated otherwise, each feature disclosed in this specification (including the accompanying claims, abstract and drawings) may be replaced by an alternative feature providing the same, equivalent or similar purpose.

In addition, those skilled in the art can understand that although some embodiments described herein include certain features included in other embodiments but not other features, the combination of features of different embodiments means that they are within the scope of the present application. Within and form different embodiments. For example, in the claims, any one of the claimed embodiments can be used in any combination.

The various component embodiments of the present application may be implemented by hardware, or by software modules running on one or more processors, or by a combination of them. Those skilled in the art should understand that a microprocessor or a digital signal processor (DSP) may be used in practice to implement some or all of the functions of some modules according to the embodiments of the present application. This application can also be implemented as a device program (for example, a computer program and a computer program product) for executing part or all of the methods described herein. Such a program for realizing the present application may be stored on a computer-readable medium, or may have the form of one or more signals. Such a signal can be downloaded from an Internet website, or provided on a carrier signal, or provided in any other form.

It should be noted that the above-mentioned embodiments illustrate rather than limit the application, and those skilled in the art can design alternative embodiments without departing from the scope of the appended claims. In the claims, any reference signs placed between parentheses should not be constructed as a limitation to the claims. The application can be realized by means of hardware including several different elements and by means of a suitably programmed computer. In the unit claims that list several devices, several of these devices may be embodied in the same hardware item. The use of the words first, second, and third, etc. do not indicate any order. These words can be interpreted as names.

The above are only specific implementations of this application or descriptions of specific implementations. The scope of protection of this application is not limited to this. Anyone familiar with the technical field within the technical scope disclosed in this application can easily Any change or replacement should be covered within the scope of protection of this application. The protection scope of this application shall be subject to the protection scope of the claims.

Claims (23)

1. A method for measuring liver and kidney echo contrast, characterized in that the method comprises:

   Transmitting ultrasonic waves to the liver and kidney parts of the target object and receiving ultrasound echoes of the liver and kidney parts, and performing ultrasound image processing based on the ultrasound echoes of the liver and kidney parts to obtain ultrasound images;

   The location of the liver tissue area and the location of the kidney tissue area are respectively acquired based on the ultrasound image, and ultrasonic waves are respectively transmitted to the liver tissue area and the kidney tissue area based on the acquired location of the liver tissue area and the kidney tissue area And receive ultrasonic echo;

   Signal processing is performed on the ultrasound echo of the liver tissue region and the ultrasound echo of the kidney tissue region to obtain a first ultrasound signal and a second ultrasound signal, respectively, the first ultrasound signal and the second ultrasound signal All are ultrasonic signals with amplitude information and phase information; and

   The echo difference between liver tissue and kidney tissue of the target object is determined based on the first ultrasound signal and the second ultrasound signal.
2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the signal processing includes at least one of the following: gain compensation, analog-to-digital conversion, beam synthesis, quadrature demodulation, baseband signal strength calculation, and gray level pairing Number compression.
3. The method according to claim 2, wherein the signal processing includes the gain compensation, and the gain compensation uses the same compensation parameter for different depths.
4. The method according to claim 2, wherein the signal processing includes the gain compensation, the gain compensation includes a first gain compensation and a second gain compensation, and the compensation parameter used in the first gain compensation varies with As the depth increases, the compensation parameter used in the second gain compensation decreases as the depth increases.
5. The method according to any one of claims 2-4, wherein the signal processing includes the quadrature demodulation, and the quadrature demodulation uses the same demodulation frequency for different depths.
6. The method according to any one of claims 2-4, wherein the signal processing includes the quadrature demodulation, and the demodulation frequency used in the quadrature demodulation increases with depth. The amount changed by the size is less than the threshold.
7. The method according to any one of claims 1-6, wherein the determining the relationship between the liver tissue and the kidney tissue of the target object based on the first ultrasound signal and the second ultrasound signal Echo differences include:

   The ratio and/or difference between the parameter of the first ultrasound signal and the parameter of the second ultrasound signal is determined as the echo difference between the liver tissue and the kidney tissue of the target object.
8. The method according to claim 7, wherein the ratio and/or difference between the parameter of the first ultrasonic signal and the parameter of the second ultrasonic signal comprises at least one of the following:

   The amplitude ratio, amplitude distribution standard deviation ratio, center frequency ratio, frequency distribution standard deviation ratio, amplitude difference, center frequency difference, and amplitude distribution standard deviation difference of the first ultrasonic signal to the second ultrasonic signal.
9. The method according to claim 7 or 8, wherein the value of any parameter of the first ultrasonic signal is an average or median value of the parameter of a plurality of signals included in the first ultrasonic signal, so The value of any parameter of the second ultrasonic signal is an average value or a median value of the parameter of the multiple signals included in the second ultrasonic signal.
10. The method according to any one of claims 7-9, wherein the determination of the relationship between the liver tissue and the kidney tissue of the target object based on the first ultrasound signal and the second ultrasound signal Echo differences also include:

    The image distribution related parameters are extracted based on the first ultrasound signal and the second ultrasound signal respectively, and the image distribution related parameters are compared.
11. The method according to claim 10, wherein the image distribution related parameters include histogram information and/or gray-scale travel statistical information.
12. The method according to any one of claims 1-11, wherein the liver tissue area is a first target area including liver tissue, and the kidney tissue area is a second target area including kidney tissue.
13. The method according to claim 12, wherein the depths of the first target area and the second target area are the same.
14. The method according to any one of claims 1-13, wherein the method further comprises:

    After determining the echo difference between the liver tissue and the kidney tissue of the target object, the echo difference result is displayed on the ultrasound image.
15. The method according to claim 14, wherein the displaying the echo difference result on the ultrasound image comprises:

    The compared parameters and the numerical results obtained from the comparison are directly displayed on the ultrasound image.
16. The method according to claim 14, wherein the displaying the echo difference result on the ultrasound image comprises:

    The respective values of the same parameters of the first ultrasound signal and the second ultrasound signal are displayed in their respective tissue regions as image attributes, and different values are displayed using different image attributes.
17. The method according to claim 16, wherein the image attribute is color or line thickness.
18. A method for measuring liver and kidney echo contrast, characterized in that the method comprises:

    Obtain the ultrasound echo of the liver tissue area and the ultrasound echo of the kidney tissue area;

    Signal processing is performed on the ultrasound echo of the liver tissue region and the ultrasound echo of the kidney tissue region to obtain a first ultrasound signal and a second ultrasound signal respectively, and the signal processing includes at least one of the following: gain Compensation, analog-to-digital conversion, beam synthesis, quadrature demodulation, baseband signal strength calculation and gray-scale logarithmic compression, and neither the first ultrasonic signal nor the second ultrasonic signal has undergone gray-scale conversion processing; and

    The echo difference between liver tissue and kidney tissue of the target object is determined based on the first ultrasound signal and the second ultrasound signal.
19. A method for measuring liver and kidney echo contrast, characterized in that the method comprises:

    Transmitting ultrasonic waves to the liver and kidney parts of the target object and receiving ultrasound echoes of the liver and kidney parts, and performing ultrasound image processing based on the ultrasound echoes of the liver and kidney parts to obtain ultrasound images;

    Acquiring ultrasound echoes of the liver tissue region and ultrasound echoes of the kidney tissue region based on the ultrasound echoes of the liver and kidney parts;

    Signal processing is performed based on the ultrasound echo of the liver tissue region and the ultrasound echo of the kidney tissue region to obtain the first ultrasound signal and the second ultrasound signal respectively, and the signal processing includes at least one of the following: gain Compensation, analog-to-digital conversion, beam synthesis, quadrature demodulation, baseband signal strength calculation and gray-scale logarithmic compression, and the first ultrasonic signal and the second ultrasonic signal have not undergone gray-scale conversion processing;

    Determining the echo difference between liver tissue and kidney tissue of the target object based on the first ultrasound signal and the second ultrasound signal; and

    The difference between the ultrasound image and the echo is displayed.
20. A method for measuring liver and kidney echo contrast, characterized in that the method comprises:

    Transmitting ultrasonic waves to the liver and kidney parts of the target object and receiving ultrasound echoes of the liver and kidney parts;

    Perform ultrasound image processing based on the ultrasound echoes of the liver and kidney parts to obtain ultrasound images, wherein the ultrasound image processing includes at least gain compensation and/or quadrature demodulation, and the gain compensation uses the same compensation parameters for different depths , Or the gain compensation includes a first gain compensation and a second gain compensation, the compensation parameter used in the first gain compensation increases as the depth increases, and the compensation parameter used in the second gain compensation increases with the increase in depth. Decrease as the depth increases, the quadrature demodulation uses the same demodulation frequency for different depths, or the magnitude of the demodulation frequency used by the quadrature demodulation changes with the depth Less than the threshold; and

    The echo difference between liver tissue and kidney tissue of the target object is determined based on the ultrasound image.
21. A measuring device for liver and kidney echo comparison, wherein the device includes a memory and a processor, and a computer program run by the processor is stored in the memory, and the computer program is executed by the processor. The method for measuring liver and kidney echo contrast according to any one of claims 1-20 is performed at the time.
22. A medical system, characterized in that, the medical system comprises the liver-kidney echo contrast measuring device according to claim 21.
23. A storage medium, characterized in that a computer program is stored on the storage medium, and the computer program executes the liver-kidney echo contrast measurement method according to any one of claims 1-20 when the computer program is running.

Images