The present disclosure describes ultrasound systems and methods configured to determine stiffness levels of anisotropic tissue. Systems can include an ultrasound transducer configured to acquire echoes responsive to ultrasound pulses transmitted toward anisotropic tissue having an angular orientation with respect to a nominal axial direction of the transducer. Systems can also include a beamformer configured to control the transducer to transmit a push pulse along a steering angle for generating a shear wave in the anisotropic tissue. The steering angle can be based on the angular orientation of the tissue. The transducer can also be controlled to transmit tracking pulses. Systems can also include a processor configured to store tracking line echo data generated from echo signals received at the transducer. In response to the echo data, the processor can detect motion within the tissue caused by propagation of the shear wave and measure the velocity of the shear wave.

A catheter-based ultrasound imaging system configured to provide a full circumferential 360-degree view around an intra-vascular/intra-cardiac imaging-catheter-head by generating a three-dimensional view of the tissue surrounding the imaging-head over time. The ultrasound imaging system can also provide tissue-state mapping capability. The evaluation of the vasculature and tissue characteristics include path and depth of lesions during cardiac-interventions such as ablation. The ultrasound imaging system comprises a catheter with a static or rotating sensor array tip supporting continuous circumferential rotation around its axis, connected to an ultrasound module and respective processing machinery allowing ultrafast imaging and a rotary motor that translates radial movements around a longitudinal catheter axis through a rotary torque transmitting part to rotate the sensor array-tip. This allows the capture and reconstruction of information of the vasculature including tissue structure around the catheter tip for generation of the three-dimensional view over time.

Systems and methods can be used for ultrasound-based geometry determination for cardiac mapping. A patient can be scanned with an ultrasound while wearing body surface electrodes. While the scanning takes place, the location of the ultrasound transducer can be tracked in three-dimensional space. The electrodes can be tracked and located in the same coordinate system as the image volume. Therefore, each electrode's location can be determined relative to the acquired image volume such that corresponding geometry data is generated for the heart and the electrodes.

Described here are systems and methods for estimating shear wave velocity from data acquired with a shear wave elastography system. More particularly, the systems and methods described here implement a spatiotemporal time-to-peak algorithm that searches for the times at which shear wave motion is at a maximum while also searching for the lateral locations at which shear wave motion is at a maximum. Motion can include displacement, velocity, or acceleration caused by propagating shear waves. A fitting procedure (e.g., a linear fit) is performed on a combined set of these temporal peaks and spatial peaks to estimate the shear wave velocity, from which mechanical properties can be computed. Motion amplitude thresholding can also be used to increase the number of points for the fitting.

Systems and methods for improving the quality of ultrasound images made up of a combination of multiple sub-images include giving more weight to sub-image information that is more likely to improve a combined image quality. Weighting factor information may be determined from the geometry (e.g., angle or path length) of a location of one or more specific transducer elements relative to a specific point within a region of interest or a region of an image. In some embodiments, any given pixel (or other discrete region of an image) may be formed by combining received echo data in a manner that gives more weight to data that is likely to improve image quality, and/or discounting or ignoring data that is likely to detract from image quality (e.g., by introducing noise or by increasing point spread).

An ultrasound imaging system and method includes acquiring ultrasound image data of an object while translating the ultrasound probe, where the ultrasound probe includes a scanning surface. The ultrasound imaging system and method includes displaying an acquisition view during the process of acquiring the panoramic ultrasound data. The ultrasound imaging system and method includes automatically determining acoustic contact of the scanning surface with the object while acquiring the panoramic ultrasound data and displaying a color-coded indicator at the same time as the acquisition view, where the color-coded indicator represents the acoustic contact of the scanning surface in real-time during the process of acquiring the panoramic ultrasound data.

A device and system for and methods of using an ultrasound probe housing containing ultrasound probes configured to produce images inside the body of a patient for procedures requiring needle or probe insertion. The ultrasound probe housing can be configured with a guide channel cut-out or aperture between the ambient side and body side of a patient. A needle guide assembly may be pivotally connect internal to the guide channel cut-out or aperture of the ultrasound probe housing at a pivot point such that during use the needle enters the patient through the needle guide assembly within the ultrasonic probe housing so that the needle can be visualized by the ultrasonic probes in real time. The ultrasound probe housing may also provide an adhesion or suction quality to the body side of the device to facilitate aspects of the invention.

An ultrasound system produces 3D images at a high framerate of display. A volumetric region is scanned with plane wave or diverging transmit beams to insonify a large part of or even the entire volumetric region with each transmit event. To avoid the acquisition of clutter signals in the azimuth and elevation dimensions, the plane waves or diverging beams are transmitted at angles intermediate the elevation and azimuth directions. By transmitting plane waves or diverging beams at multiple different angles which are each a combination of both the elevation and azimuth directions, sidelobe clutter is reduced in the resulting compounded images.

An ultrasound system produces high quality images at a high framerate of display. A plane or volume to be imaged is scanned by different diverging transmit beams to acquire a series of different sub-frames, the number of sub-frame acquisitions comprising a total number of transmit beams which would produce a high quality image. The echoes received in response to the transmit beams of a sub-frame are coherently combined with the echoes received in other sub-frames. Each time the echoes of a new sub-frame have been coherently combined with the echoes of all other different sub-frames, a full image is produced. After a complete series of sub-frames has been received and the echoes combined, another series of sub-frame acquisition is commenced and a new series of sub-frames acquired. As each new sub-frame is acquired, it is coherently combined with all the other different and most recently acquired sub-frames. This technique produces a new image at the sub-frame scanning rate, rather than awaiting a completely new series of sub-frames before forming a new image.

A system and method for performing ultrasound scans is provided. One embodiment of the ultrasonagraphic system acquires sonogram information from a series of ultrasonic scans of a human subject. The series of ultrasound scans are taken over a portion of interest on the human subject which has their underlying bone structure or other ultrasound discernable organ that is under examination. The data from the series of scans are synthesized into a single data file that corresponds to a three-dimensional (3D) image and/or 3D model of the underlying bone structure or organ of the examined human subject.