A medical system includes an ultrasound probe for insertion into an organ of a body and a processor. The ultrasound probe includes (i) a two-dimensional (2D) ultrasound transducer array, and (ii) a sensor configured to output signals indicative of a position, direction and orientation of the 2D ultrasound transducer array inside the organ. The processor is configured to (a) using the signals output by the sensor, register multiple ultrasound images of a tissue region, acquired over a given time duration by the 2D ultrasound transducer array, with one another, and (b) generate a map of the tissue region indicative of respective amounts of motion of tissue locations in the tissue region.

The three-dimensional ultrasound imaging method comprise emitting an ultrasonic wave to a fetal head; receiving an ultrasonic echo to acquire an ultrasonic echo signal; acquiring three-dimensional volume data of the fetal head according to the ultrasonic echo signal; detecting a median sagittal section from the three-dimensional volume data according to features of the median sagittal section of the fetal head; determining a facing orientation of the fetal head in the median sagittal section; displaying the median sagittal section as an image suitable for observation according to the facing orientation of the fetal head.

The present invention relates to a device (2) and a method (100) for determining at least one final two-dimensional image or slice for visualizing an object of interest in a three-dimensional ultrasound volume. The method (100) for determining at least one final two-dimensional image, the method comprises the steps: a) providing (101) a three-dimensional image of a body region of a patient body, wherein an applicator configured for fixating at least one radiation source is inserted into the body region; b) providing (102) an initial direction, in particular by randomly determining the initial direction within the three-dimensional image; c) repeating (103) the following sequence of steps s1) to s4): s1) determining (104), via a processing unit, a set-direction within the three-dimensional image based on the initial direction for the first sequence or based on a probability map determined during a previous sequence; s2) extracting (105), via the processing unit, an image-set of two-dimensional images from the three-dimensional image, such that the two-dimensional images of the image-set are arranged coaxially and subsequently in the set-direction; s3) applying (106), via the processing unit, an applicator pre-trained classification method to each of the two-dimensional images of the image-set resulting in a probability score for each of the two-dimensional images of the image-set indicating a probability of the applicator being depicted, in particular fully depicted, in the respective two-dimensional image of the image-set in a cross-sectional view; and s4) determining (107), via the processing unit, a probability-map representing the probability scores of the two-dimensional images of the image-set with respect to the set-direction; wherein the method comprises the further step: d) determining (108), via a processing unit and after finishing the last sequence, the two-dimensional image associated with the highest probability score, in particular from the image-set determined during the last sequence, as the final two-dimensional image. The invention provides an efficient way to ensure that the ultrasound volume has the required clinical information by providing the necessary scan planes having the object of interest e.g. the applicator (6) in a three-dimensional ultrasound volume.

A system for delivering drugs or other molecules to the brain comprises an ultrasound imaging transducer configured to image structures such as the circle of Willis within a patient's head by way of a low attenuation acoustic window. The system includes a processor configured to register the ultrasound images to previously obtained images which also include the structures. The system includes ultrasound transducer elements operable to deliver ultrasound energy to a target region to cause the blood brain barrier to open. The system may include a drug delivery system that may be operated to deliver a drug to the patient in coordination with opening the blood brain barrier. Coordinates of the target region relative to the ultrasound imaging transducer are determined using registration information.

A method of determining a three-dimensional motion of a movable ultrasound probe (10) is described. The method is carried out during acquisition of an ultrasound image of a volume portion (2) by the ultrasound probe. The method comprises receiving a stream of ultrasound image data (20) from the ultrasound probe (10) while the ultrasound probe is moved along the volume portion (2); inputting at least a sub-set of the ultrasound image data (20, 40) representing a plurality of ultrasound image frames (22) into a machine-learning module (50), wherein the machine learning module (50) has been trained to determine the relative three-dimensional motion between ultrasound image frames (22); and determining, by the machine-learning module (50), a three-dimensional motion indicator (60) indicating the relative three-dimensional motion between the ultrasound image frames.

An ultrasonic detection method and ultrasonic imaging system for a fetal heart. Since after three-dimensional volume data is obtained, at least one point within a fetal heart in the three-dimensional volume data is identified, the spatial position where a fetal heart cross-section is located in the three-dimensional volume data is identified according to the point, and the fetal heart cross-section is then extracted from the three-dimensional volume data according to the identified spatial position, the fetal heart cross-section can be quickly acquired from the three-dimensional volume data. The present invention is simple and easy to use, and is convenient for a doctor to make a diagnosis.

For three-dimensional segmentation from two-dimensional intracardiac echocardiography imaging, the three-dimension segmentation is output by a machine-learnt multi-task generator. The machine-learnt multi-task generator is trained from 3D information, such as a sparse ICE volume assembled from the 2D ICE images. The machine-learnt multi-task generator is trained to output both the 3D segmentation and a complete volume. The 3D segmentation may be used to project to 2D as an input with an ICE image to another network trained to output a 2D segmentation for the ICE image. Display of the 3D segmentation and/or 2D segmentation may guide ablation of tissue in the patient.

In order to estimate a temperature of a transmission-reception wavefront of a probe head, a first computing unit and a second computing unit are provided. The first computing unit estimates a temperature TA of the transmission-reception wavefront according to a basic function based on an internal temperature T1, an ambient temperature T2, power consumption Ptotal (=Pic+Ptd), and any other parameter. The basic function is a linear function. The second computing unit estimates a temperature TB of the transmission-reception wavefront according to an auxiliary function based on a previously estimated temperature Tpre, an internal temperature difference ΔT1, and any other, parameter. A selection unit selects any of the temperatures TA and TB depending on situations.

A system and method for presenting rotation previews of an object depicted in a volume rendering of 3D and/or 4D image data is provided. The method includes presenting a volume rendering of an object having an initial view at a display system. The method includes presenting volume rendering previews at the display system. Each of the volume rendering previews provides a different rotational view of the object and is located on the display system in relation to the volume rendering at a position associated with a directional directive of a user input device. The method includes receiving a directional directive from the user input device. The method includes presenting an updated volume rendering of the object at the display system. The updated volume rendering includes an updated view of the object rotated from the initial view based on the directional directive from the user input device.

A method and system for detecting the presence or absence of a target or desired object within a three-dimensional (3D) image. The 3D image is processed to extract one or more 3D feature representations, each of which is then dimensionally reduced into one or more two-dimensional (2D) feature representations. An object detection process is then performed on the 2D features map(s) to generate information about at least the presence or absence of an object within the 2D feature representations, and thereby the overall 3D image.