A guidance system for guiding insertion of a needle into a body of a patient utilizes ultrasound imaging or other suitable imaging technology. The guidance system can include an imaging device including a probe for producing an image of the internal body portion target, such as a blood vessel. The imaging device can be configured to provide at least one indication of status via sensory feedback based on a determined position of the needle, for example via a plurality of light-emitting diodes located on the device. One or more sensors can be included with the probe that can sense a magnetic field associated with the needle. The system may include a processor that can receive magnetic field data sensed by the at-least-one sensor to determine the position of the needle. The system can also include a display that depicts the determined position of the needle.

A catheter that comprises a catheter configured for housing at least a portion of a catheter configured for insertion into a body lumen in proximity of a targeted anatomical site and having an imager at a distal end thereof and an adjustable chamber configured for covering the imager. The catheter is configured for introducing a wave conductive medium to the adjustable chamber to increase wave conductivity between the targeted anatomical site and the imager.

A replaceable attachment for an ultrasound probe includes a ring-like fastening region for fastening the attachment to the ultrasound probe, and a flexible membrane arranged on the fastening region. A first liquid or gel-like contact medium is applied to an inner contact surface of the membrane. The contact surface makes contact with an end face of the ultrasound probe when an attachment is fastened to the ultrasound probe. Before the attachment is fastened, the first contact medium is distributed on the contact surface in such a manner that, in an array region of the contact surface, a quantity of the first contact medium per surface is at least twice as large as in a remaining region of the contact surface. A positioning and extent of the array region is adapted to a positioning and extent of a piezo array of the ultrasound probe.

Provided are a failure prediction system of an ultrasonic endoscope apparatus, a failure prediction method of the ultrasonic endoscope apparatus, and a non-transitory computer readable recording medium storing a failure prediction program of the ultrasonic endoscope apparatus capable of predicting a failure occurrence timing in the ultrasonic endoscope apparatus. A system controller includes an abnormality detection unit that acquires a reception signal of an ultrasonic vibrator of an ultrasonic endoscope and detects an abnormality of an ultrasonic endoscope apparatus including the ultrasonic endoscope, a storage control unit that stores information on the abnormality detected by the abnormality detection unit in association with time information, and a failure prediction unit that predicts a failure timing of the ultrasonic endoscope apparatus on the basis of the plurality of pieces of abnormality information stored by the storage control unit and time information corresponding the information.

The present disclosure provides systems and methods for predicting a disease state of a subject using ultrasound imaging. The method includes identifying at least one quantitative measurement of a subject using ultrasound imaging, the at least one quantitative measurement included as part of quantitative information of the subject gathered based on the ultrasound imaging, comparing the at least one quantitative measurement to a first predetermined standard to determine a first initial value, the first predetermined standard falling within a first range of quantities, identifying at least one qualitative measurement of the subject using the ultrasound imaging, the at least one qualitative measurement included as part of qualitative information of the subject gathered based on the ultrasound imaging, comparing the at least one qualitative measurement to a second predetermined standard to determine a second initial value, the second predetermined standard falling within a second range of quantities; and correlating at least the quantitative information and the qualitative information using the first initial value and the second initial value to determine a final value that is used in predicting a disease state of the subject.

In an ultrasound system and a control method of the ultrasound system, in a case where the number of times of an operation corresponding to first operation information as at least one piece of operation information among a plurality of pieces of operation information corresponding to a wireless connection error, which is performed by a user, has reached a predetermined number within a predetermined period, second operation information as at least one piece of the operation information among the plurality of pieces of operation information, which corresponds to an operation that is not performed by the user, is proposed to the user.

To register a position and an angle of a scanning surface of an ultrasound probe easily and accurately. A phantom including two or more wires stretched in a non-parallel manner is disposed in a real space in which a position detection sensor is disposed. An ultrasound probe, to which a probe position detection marker is attached, is moved on the phantom in a parallel manner while keeping an orientation of a main plane of the ultrasound probe constant. Two or more ultrasound images of the phantom are acquired while detecting a position of the probe position detection marker in the real space with the position detection sensor. Positions of cross-sectional images of the two or more wires included in each of the two or more ultrasound images are obtained. A relation between the position of the probe position detection marker in the real space and orientations and positions of the captured ultrasound images in the real space is calculated based on a relation between the obtained positions of the cross-sectional images. The calculated relation as probe coordinate transformation information is registered in a storage unit.

Various methods and systems are provided for automatically or semi-automatically adjusting one or more ultrasound imaging parameters for imaging in a second mode based on images obtained in a first mode. In one example, a method includes operating an ultrasound imaging system in a first operating mode, determining an anatomy imaged by the ultrasound imaging system in the first operating mode, and responsive to an operating mode transition request, adjusting imaging parameters of the ultrasound imaging system in a second operating mode based on the first operating mode and the anatomy imaged in the first operating mode.

In an ultrasound system and a control method of the ultrasound system, in a case where occurrence of an error is detected, first operation information as at least one piece of operation information with the highest priority among a plurality of pieces of operation information corresponding to a type of the error that has occurred is displayed, and in a case where the number of times of the operation corresponding to the first operation information, which is performed by the user, has reached a predetermined number within a predetermined period after the first operation information is displayed, second operation information as at least one piece of operation information with the highest priority next to the first operation information is displayed.

In an ultrasound imaging system which produces synthetically transmit focused images, the multiline signals used to form image scanlines are analyzed for speed of sound variation, and a map 60 of this variation is generated. In a preferred implementation, the phase discrepancy of the received multilines caused by speed of sound variation in the medium is estimated in the angular spectrum domain for the receive angular spectrum. Once the phase is estimated for all locations in an image, the differential phase between two points at the same lateral location, but different depth, is computed. This differential phase is proportional to the local speed of sound between the two points. A color-coded two- or three-dimensional map 60 is produced from these speed of sound estimates and presented to the user.