A method for tissue characterization by ultrasound wave attenuation measurements is provided that comprises: a) transmitting at least an ultrasound pulse in a target body; b) receiving ultrasound pulses reflected by the target body and transforming the reflected ultrasound pulses into RF reception signals; c) extracting an envelope of the received RF signals; d) carrying out a logarithmic compression of the extracted envelope and e) computing a propagation depth dependent attenuation coefficient of the tissues crossed by the ultrasound pulse in the target body as the slope of the line fitting the logarithmic compressed envelope data along the penetration depth of the ultrasound pulse in the target body. The disclosure relates also to an ultrasound system for carrying out the method.

Aspects of the present disclosure describe medical device placement, including devices, systems and methods for placing catheters, such as epidural catheters, or other medical devices, such as needles, using a guide on a sterile ultrasound sheath.

Disclosed in an intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) image analysis method, comprising the steps of: allowing a computer to acquire an IVUS image of an object; segmenting a constituent element included in the IVUS image; and determining the constituent parts and the degree of risk of plaque included in the IVUS image.

An ultrasound diagnostic apparatus includes an ultrasound probe, a reference image holding unit that holds an ultrasound image acquired by fixing a position of the ultrasound probe as a reference image, a movement vector calculation unit that calculates a movement vector between two ultrasound images, a movement vector integration unit that integrates the movement vector from a time when the reference image is held to a current time, a deformed image generation unit that generates a deformed image in which the current ultrasound image is moved and changed to a time when the reference image is held based on an integration result, a tomographic plane determination unit that compares the deformed image with the reference image to determine whether tomographic planes of the current ultrasound image and the reference image are the same as each other, and a determination result notification unit that notifies a user of a determination result.

A reception beamformer 140 includes a delay-and-sum unit 142 that performs delay-and-sum processing with respect to reception signal sequences from multiple channels based on reflected ultrasound to calculate acoustic line signal line data. The delay-and-sum unit 142, in first reception beamforming processing, synthesizes the acoustic line signal line data calculated in the delay-and-sum processing by summing acoustic line signals associated with the observation points having the same positions, and, in the second reception beamforming processing, outputs the acoustic line signal data calculated in the delay-and-sum processing as is. Time taken by the delay-and-sum unit 142 to generate the acoustic line signal line data per set of acoustic line signal line data is equal or approximately equal in the first reception beamforming processing and the second reception beamforming processing.

A method for characterizing tissue of a patient, including receiving acoustic data derived from the interaction between the tissue and the acoustic waves irradiating the tissue; generating a morphology rendering of the tissue from the acoustic data, in which the rendering represents at least one biomechanical property of the tissue; determining a prognostic parameter for a region of interest in the rendering, in which the prognostic parameter incorporates the biomechanical property; and analyzing the prognostic parameter to characterize the region of interest. In some embodiment, the method further includes introducing a contrast agent into the tissue; generating a set of enhanced morphology renderings of the tissue after introducing the contrast agent; determining an enhanced prognostic parameter from the enhanced morphology renderings; and analyzing the enhanced prognostic parameter.

A distributed patient monitoring system comprises at least one standalone portable ultrasound imaging unit configured to be fixed to a stable position against the skin on a patient's body and capable of prolonged ultrasound data acquisition, including an ultrasound imaging array, transmit-receive circuitry, a beamformer, backend signal and image processing subsystem, power and communication subsystems, and a monitoring workstation connected to each standalone portable ultrasound imaging unit configured to request and receive ultrasound imaging information from each standalone portable ultrasound imaging unit, and configured to analyze and display acquired ultrasound information.

A system for visualization and quantification of ultrasound imaging data according to embodiments of the present disclosure may include a display unit, and a processor communicatively coupled to the display unit and to an ultrasound imaging apparatus for generating an image from ultrasound data representative of a bodily structure and fluid flowing within the bodily structure. The processor may be configured to estimate axial and lateral velocity components of the fluid flowing within the bodily structure, determine a plurality of flow directions within the image based on the axial and lateral velocity components, differentially encode the flow directions based on flow direction angle to generate a flow direction map, and cause the display unit to concurrently display the image including the bodily structure overlaid with the flow direction map.

A method includes emitting an ultrasound beam from an array of ultrasound transducers in a catheter placed in a blood pool in an organ. Echo signals reflected in response to the ultrasound beam are received in the array. Distinction is made in the echo signals between (i) first spectral signal components having Doppler shifts characteristic of blood and (ii) second spectral signal components having Doppler shifts characteristic of tissue of the organ. The first spectral signal components are suppressed relative to the second spectral signal components in the echo signals. An ultrasound image of at least a portion of the organ is reconstructed from the echo signals having the suppressed first spectral signal components. The reconstructed image is displayed to a user.

A system for determining peripheral artery disease and method of use for determining the presence or absence of peripheral vascular disease and the severity of the disease in particular vascular segments. The System for determining peripheral artery disease and method of use includes a continuous wave Doppler transceiver which generates a digitized version of quadrature detected stereo audio and is coupleable to a waveform converter and processor. The waveform converter and processor provides filtering, time domain to frequency domain conversion, gain control, and statistical processing of the converted Doppler Stereo audio and is operationally coupled to a display for presenting results to a technician.