A catheter for contacting an object to be measured. The catheter includes an inner shaft having a distal end and including a lumen along a longitudinal axis direction, an outer shaft having a distal end and configured to cover an outer periphery of the inner shaft, and at least one ultrasonic element configured to transmit and receive ultrasonic waves while either the distal end of the inner shaft or the distal end of the outer shaft is in contact with the object to be measured, the at least one ultrasonic element being disposed between the inner shaft and the outer shaft, and on a proximal end side from at least one of the distal end of the inner shaft and the distal end of the outer shaft.

Apparatus and methods for treating and monitoring conditions such as rhinitis are disclosed herein. The technology utilizes ultrasound scans to identify target treatment sites, and monitor the treatment of a patient undergoing a treatment. The treatment may be an ablation treatment of a nasal nerve, for example the PNN for the treatment of nasal conditions, such as rhinitis. The ultrasound scans are performed within the nasal cavity with an ultrasound probe or a combined ultrasound and ablation probe and may use Doppler, A-mode, B-mode, M-mode or other ultrasound and non-ultrasound modalities to detect and monitor the target treatment sites.

An ultrasound diagnostic apparatus (1) includes a gel layer thickness calculation unit (9) that calculates a thickness of a gel layer by analyzing an ultrasound image; a tissue recognition unit (10) that recognizes a tissue of a subject by analyzing the ultrasound image; and a press state determination unit (11) that determines a press state of an ultrasound probe (21) against a body surface of the subject on the basis of a shape change of the tissue recognized by the tissue recognition unit (10) in a case where the calculated thickness of the gel layer is equal to or less than a thickness threshold value.

A surface property measurement technology by which a surface property of a substance can be evaluated with high accuracy, is provided. A surface property measurement method includes radiating an ultrasonic wave to a measurement target and acquiring a reflected signal from the measurement target; calculating, by a measurement apparatus, a maximum value of a cross-correlation function between the reflected signal from the measurement target and a reference reflected signal from a reference substance acquired in advance; calculating a reflection component at an interface, by using the maximum value of the cross-correlation function; and outputting, as a measurement value, one of an acoustic impedance of the measurement target or an acoustic impedance of the reference substance, according to a result of comparing the reflection component with the reference reflected signal.

The invention provides a method for obtaining a physiological measure from a subject, in particular a P-V loop. The method includes obtaining a numerical model of a cardiac system and obtaining, in a non-invasive manner, physiological data from the subject. The numerical model is then updated based on the physiological data. The physiological data is then provided to the updated numerical model and a physiological measure is derived based on an output of the updated numerical model, wherein the physiological measure includes a P-V loop.

A dialysis catheter with an elongate body has a distal end defining blood removal and return ports communicating with internal blood removal and return lumens extending through the elongate body. A sensing pathway is disposed in or on the elongate body. A vascular dimension sensor is provided to dynamically measure changes in dimension of the SVC or IVC during dialysis. The sensor communicates with a control system and may be controlled or positioned via the communication pathway of the catheter body. Systems disclosed included integrated closed-loop treatment based on monitored vascular dimension input. Methods included patient optimized treatments incorporating treatment modulation based on dynamic vascular dimension monitoring.

A system for providing an ultrasonic skin-tightening treatment is disclosed. The system comprises a) a flexible sleeve wrapped around a treatment volume of a patient; b) one or more treatment panels, arranged on an inside wall of the sleeve, provide ultrasound energy and cooling to the treatment volume; and c) a control module controls ultrasonic and cooling parameters independently for each treatment panel. The system enables hands-free treatment over an entire treatment volume, with localized variations of the parameters, according to treatment requirements, under each treatment panel. The ultrasound and cooling parameters may be varied to select treatment of a particular depth below the skin surface.

Various methods and systems are provided for a medical imaging system. In one embodiment, a method includes acquiring a series of medical images of a lung, identifying a pleural line in each medical image of the series, evaluating the pleural line for irregularities in each medical image of the series, and outputting an annotated version of each medical image of the series, the annotated version including visual markers for healthy pleura and irregular pleura. In this way, an operator of the medical imaging system may be alerted to pleural irregularities during a scan.

Disclosed are an ultrasound imaging system for analysis of a body composition and an operation method of an ultrasound imaging system which is designed for analysis of a body composition. An ultrasound imaging system may include: a scan device into which an object is insertable; an ultrasonic probe connected to a part of the scan device; a controller configured to control the ultrasonic probe to emit a transmission ultrasonic signal to the object at multiple positions at the scan device, and receive a reflection ultrasonic signal reflected from the object; and an image processor configured to generate multiple 2D ultrasound images based on reflection ultrasonic signals received at the multiple positions at the scan device, respectively, and generate a 3D ultrasound image based on the multiple 2D ultrasound images.

Beamforming circuitry for an ultrasound device is disclosed, that may directly calculate the position in receive line space for an incoming ultrasound data sample given the time of flight (ToF) of that ultrasound data sample. In some embodiments, this may be done without initially buffering the ultrasound data sample received from the particular receive datapath multiplexed to the beamforming circuitry. The beamforming circuitry may then associate the ultrasound data sample with that position in receive line space, and in particular, with a memory address corresponding to that location. Thus, when the beamforming circuitry multiplexes between different receive datapaths, it may not need to buffer ultrasound data samples from different receive datapaths prior to saving the data to memory.