There are provided a medical image processing device, an endoscope system, a medical image processing method, and a program which detect an optimal lesion region according to an in-vivo position of a captured image. Images at a plurality of in-vivo positions of a subject are acquired from medical equipment that sequentially captures and displays in real time the images; positional information indicating the in-vivo position of the acquired image is acquired; from among a plurality of region-of-interest detection units that detect a region of interest from an input image and correspond to the plurality of in-vivo positions, respectively, a region-of-interest detection unit corresponding to the position indicated by the positional information is selected; and the selected region-of-interest detection unit detects a region of interest from the acquired image.

Methods, apparatus, and systems are provided for facilitating the navigation of a catheter between first and second locations within a subject based on display of serial images corresponding to positions of the catheter at successive incremental times. Image production includes sensing catheter positions to produce location data for each time increment. For each position P.sub.i, the corresponding location data is processed to respectively produce an image I.sub.i reflecting the position of the catheter at a time T.sub.i. Each image I.sub.i is successively displayed at a time equal to T.sub.i+d, where d is an image processing visualization delay. Upon a condition that the catheter is displaced to a selected interim location between the first and second locations, the processing of the location data is switched from being performed by a first process associated with a first visualization delay to a second process associated with a second different visualization delay.

Systems and techniques for reliably predicting a motion phase for non-invasive treatment of the heart. The system and methods may account for both respiratory and cardiac cycles in characterizing the motion of the heart relative to the irradiation source. The system and methods may also include a heartbeat sensor that provides an independent reference indication of the cardiac phase to provide real-time or near real-time quality assurance of a current predicted phase indication. The disclosed system and methods may be configured for use in one of two modes: “beam-gating” and “beam-tracking”. For beam-gating, the predicted cardiac phase is compared to the desired gating window, based on the patient-specific treatment plan, to determine if a gate ON or gate OFF signal should be set. For beam-tracking, the predicted cardiac phase is used to load the appropriate beam parameters based on the patient-specific and motion phase-dependent treatment plans.

An imaging system aka 3d camera operative in conjunction with a tube having two open ends, the system comprising active portions small enough to fit into the tube and an electronic subsystem including a hardware processor operative to receive image/s from the active portions and to generate therefrom at least one 3D image of a scene visible via one of the tube's open ends. The system may comprise a tracker configured to be secured to the tube, and a method for monitoring location, e.g. absolute location, of the tube, accordingly.

An ultrasound system is disclosed that includes an ultrasound imaging device including a display screen, a processor and memory having stored thereon logic, and an ultrasound probe. The logic of the ultrasound imaging device, upon execution by the processor, can causes an alteration of content displayed on the display screen in accordance of with ultrasound probe movement-related data. The ultrasound imaging device can include a light source configured to provide incident light to the optical fiber cable, the optical fiber cable including a plurality of reflective gratings disposed along a length thereof. Each of the plurality of reflective gratings can be configured to reflect light with different specific spectral widths to provide distributed measurements in accordance with strain applied to the optical fiber cable. The ultrasound imaging device can obtain the ultrasound probe movement-related data through an optical fiber.

Systems and methods for tracking a target volume, e.g., tumor, in real-time during radiation treatment are provided. The system includes a memory to store a pre-acquired 3D image of the anatomy of interest in a first reference frame and a processor, operative coupled with the memory, to receive, from an ultrasound probe, a set-up ultrasound image of the anatomy of interest in a second reference frame. The processor further to establish a transformation between the first and second reference frames by registering the set-up ultrasound image with the pre-acquired 3D image and receive, from the ultrasound probe, an intrafraction ultrasound image of the anatomy of interest. The processor further to register the intrafraction ultrasound image with the set-up ultrasound image and track motion of the anatomy of interest based on the registered intrafraction ultrasound image.

A system useful for performing ultrasound elastography of organs such as the liver allows efficient and robust data acquisition. The system may be applied to perform real-time, noninvasive ultrasound imaging of the liver in humans. Steady-state, shear wave absolute elastography is used to measure the Young's modulus of the liver tissue. This method involves the use of an external exciter or vibrator to shake the tissue and generate a shear wave. Accurate placement of an ultrasound transducer facilitates measurement of the tissue motion due to the shear wave. The stiffness of tissues in the region being imaged may be computed from the measured tissue motions. The following innovations address both vibrator and transducer placement, as well as some specific methods to ensure adequate wave propagation, in order to obtain accurate and consistent measurements.

An ultrasound imaging method includes providing a digital representation of the shape of a surface or boundary of an anatomic region or organ; acquiring an ultrasound image by ultrasound scanning the anatomic region or organ; and combining the digital representation of the shape of the surface or boundary of the anatomic region or organ by registering the digital representation of the shape of the surface or boundary and the ultrasound image as a function of the difference in position of selected reference points on the digital representation of the surface or boundary and on the ultrasound image, the position of the reference points on the ultrasound image being determined by tracking the probe position at the reference points at the anatomic region or organ of a real body and in a spatial reference system, in which the anatomic region or the organ of the real body is placed.

A surgical system includes: an endoscope capable of acquiring an endoscopic image of a surface of target tissue; an ultrasonic probe capable of acquiring an ultrasonic tomographic image of the target tissue; a treatment instrument; a display; and a controller including a memory and a processor. In response to the ultrasonic probe being inserted into the body cavity and the ultrasonic tomographic image being acquired, the processor is configured to: detect a position of the ultrasonic probe with respect to the endoscope; store the ultrasonic tomographic image associated with the position of the ultrasonic probe; and in a state in which the treatment instrument remains inserted in the body cavity, detect a position of the treatment instrument, read out the stored ultrasonic tomographic image on a basis of the detected position of the treatment instrument, and command the display to display the read-out ultrasonic tomographic image.

An ultrasound diagnosis apparatus including: an ultrasound probe; a processor configured to perform transmission of ultrasound beam from the ultrasound probe to a subject to acquire an ultrasound image; a camera configured to acquire a digital image of a state of the ultrasound probe being in contact with the subject; a touch panel including a display screen displaying the ultrasound image and the digital image; an interface to receive instruction to acquire the ultrasound image and/or the digital image from a user; and a memory configured to store the ultrasound image and the digital image, wherein the processor is further configured to: exclusively control between the acquisition of the ultrasound image and the acquisition of the digital image according to instruction received by the interface; and save the ultrasound image and the digital image of the same inspection in the memory in association with each other.