A catheter having a lumen includes a tube, a sensor unit disposed at a distal end of the tube and capable of transmitting and receiving ultrasound, and an irradiation unit disposed at the distal end of the tube and capable of emitting the ultrasound toward a guide wire which passes through the lumen and protrudes from the distal end of the tube. The shape of the biological tissue can be observed by transmitting the ultrasound from the sensor units toward the biological tissue and receiving the reflection wave reflected by the biological tissue at the sensor units. Irradiating the guide wire with the ultrasound transmitted from the irradiation unit causes the guide wire to vibrate. The vibration of the guide wire can facilitate the passage through an occlusion site of the biological tissue.

Intravascular imaging systems and methods for making and using intravascular imaging devices are disclosed. An example intravascular imaging device may comprise a catheter including an imaging device. A processor may be coupled to the catheter. The processor may be configured to process image data received from the imaging device. The processor may be configured to generate a calcium map. The calcium map may include an indicator of calcium depth to a vessel lumen surface, calcium distance to a center of the catheter, or both. A display unit may be coupled to the processor. The display unit may be configured to show a display including the calcium map.

An ultrasound imaging probe (204) includes a transducer array (210). The transducer array includes one or more transducer elements (212). The ultrasound imaging probe further includes an illumination component (218) and an optical imaging component (220). The ultrasound imaging probe further includes an elongated housing (302) with a long axis (304). The elongated housing includes a proximal end region (306) affixed to a handle (308) and a distal end region (310) with a tip region (312). The elongated housing houses the transducer array, the illumination component, and the optical imaging component in the distal end region.

There are provided an acoustic wave image generating apparatus for generating a B-mode image having a fixed brightness and a control method thereof. First brightness information (81) indicating the brightness of a first B-mode image in the depth direction of the subject is generated. Positional deviation correction is performed on an acoustic wave echo signal having a positional deviation between the focusing position of acoustic waves and the observation target position, and second brightness information (82) indicating the brightness in the depth direction of the subject is generated from a superposition signal obtained by superimposing an acoustic wave echo signal for which the positional deviation has been corrected and an acoustic wave echo signal without positional deviation. The brightness of the first B-mode image is corrected based on the first brightness information and the second brightness information.

A method for ultrasound imaging a target region including: (a) transmitting a tracking beam from at least a subset of the elements of the array to the region, each of the subset of the elements emitting a signal of the tracking beam with a respective transmission time shift; (b) receiving echo signals at at least some of the subset of the elements of the array, each echo signal being responsive to the tracking beam; (c) applying the time shift to at least some of the subset of the respective elements to the echo signals received at corresponding elements; (d) modifying the time shift and repeating (a)-(c) to provide an ultrasound dataset representing a recovered source element domain; (e) focusing and beamforming the dataset to map time signals of the dataset and combine channel signals to provide spatial pixel data; and (f) forming an ultrasound image from the spatial pixel data.

An intraluminal ultrasound imaging device includes a flexible elongate member configured to be inserted into a body lumen of a patient, the flexible elongate member comprising a proximal portion and a distal portion. The device also includes an ultrasound scanner assembly disposed at the distal portion of the flexible elongate member. The ultrasound scanner assembly includes a flexible substrate; a transducer region positioned on the flexible substrate; and a control region positioned on the flexible substrate, wherein the transducer region and the control region are radially arranged relative to one another. Associated devices, systems, and methods are also described.

In an ultrasound diagnostic apparatus and an operation method of the ultrasound diagnostic apparatus of the invention, a control circuit performs polarization processing on a plurality of ultrasound transducers in a non-diagnosis period, during which transmission of ultrasound waves and reception of reflected waves for performing ultrasound diagnosis are not performed, in a case where the cumulative driving time of the plurality of ultrasound transducers for performing the ultrasound diagnosis becomes equal to or longer than a specified time. A transmission circuit generates a first transmission signal having a driving voltage for performing ultrasound diagnosis using a pulse generation circuit in the case of performing the ultrasound diagnosis, and generates a second transmission signal having a polarization voltage for performing polarization processing using the same pulse generation circuit as in the case of generating the first transmission signal in the case of performing the polarization processing.

A method and system enable to-be-processed medical image data and its corresponding noise characteristic information to be normalized to resemble noise characteristic information of training data used to train at least one neural network for at least one ultrasound data acquisition mode. After normalizing, this processed medical image data is input into the trained neural network for producing output data used for generating cleaner images. Noise characteristic information can be used directly in training a neural network, generating a trained neural network that can handle medical image data with various noise characteristics.

An ultrasound image system is provided. The ultrasound image system includes an ultrasound probe and a processing circuit. The ultrasound probe includes a substrate, a first transducer array and a second transducer array. The first transducer array is fixed disposed on the substrate and configured to receive a first ultrasound signal The second transducer array is fixed disposed on the substrate and configured to receive a second ultrasound signal. Each of the first transducer array and the second transducer array includes a plurality of ultrasound transducer elements arranged along a first direction. The ultrasound transducer elements of the first transducer array are interleaved with the ultrasound transducer elements of the second transducer array. The processing circuit is coupled to the first transducer array and the second transducer array and is configured to generate an ultrasound image signal according to the first ultrasound signal and the second ultrasound signal.

A method for fabricating an intravascular imaging assembly is provided. In one embodiment, the method includes forming a stacked structure (415) having a plurality of sacrificial material layers disposed between a plurality of ultrasound material layers in an alternating pattern; dicing the stacked structure (420) to form a plurality of elongated strips, each comprising an array of ultrasound elements defined by the plurality of ultrasound material layers and spacers defined by the plurality of sacrificial material layers; coupling a first elongated strip (430) of the plurality of elongated strips to a flexible circuit substrate; and removing the spacers (435) of the first elongated strip from the flexible circuit substrate.