Disclosed is an ultrasonic blood perfusion imaging method for a single blood vessel, comprising: setting an ultrasound focusing label point in a blood vessel contour of a blood vessel to be measured in a region to be measured; obtaining a preactivated ultrasound image of the region to be measured when an ultrasound contrast agent is in an inactive state; activating the ultrasound contrast agent; obtaining an activated ultrasound image of the region to be measured when the ultrasound contrast agent is in an activated state; obtaining an activation map of the ultrasound contrast agent in the blood vessel to be measured; and obtaining a blood flow perfusion distribution map of the blood vessel to be measured. The ultrasound contrast agent is activated at the ultrasound focusing label point causing liquid-to-gas conversion, and the ultrasound signal changes from dark to bright.

Described herein is an implantable device having a sensor configured to detect an amount of an analyte, a pH, a temperature, strain, or a pressure; and an ultrasonic transducer with a length of about 5 mm or less in the longest dimension, configured to receive current modulated based on the analyte amount, the pH, the temperature, or the pressure detected by the sensor, and emit an ultrasonic backscatter based on the received current. The implantable device can be implanted in a subject, such as an animal or a plant. Also described herein are systems including one or more implantable devices and an interrogator comprising one or more ultrasonic transducers configured to transmit ultrasonic waves to the one or more implantable devices or receive ultrasonic backscatter from the one or more implantable devices. Also described are methods of detecting an amount of an analyte, a pH, a temperature, a strain, or a pressure.

Disclosed is a method for controlling a focused ultrasound therapy device based on an Acorn RISC Machine, the focused ultrasound therapy device being connected to a workstation and an ARM embedded processor running a linux operating system, the ARM embedded processor storing a first control program, the workstation storing a second control program, the method including: the first control program controlling the focused ultrasound therapy device by executing a task and sending a task execution result to the second control program; the task includes an internal event and an operation instruction, the internal event includes a timer event of the first control program and an interrupt message of a linux kernel, the second control program receives the operation instruction through the workstation and sends the operation instruction to the first control program.

Cancer treatment methods using thermotherapy and/or enhanced immunotherapy are disclosed herein. In one embodiment, the method comprising the steps of: (i) applying controlled thermal energy at 40-43° C. for a first predetermined time period to damage and weaken tumor cells of a tumor in a patient; (ii) administering pulsed high intensity focused ultrasound (pHIFU) in a first ultrasound mode to the tumor cells in the patient so as to damage the tumor cells without increasing the thermal energy; and (iii) administering low intensity focused ultrasound (LIFU) in a second ultrasound mode to further damage the tumor cells at a temperature of 39-43° C. for a second predetermined time period while performing observation of the tumor cells by ultrasonic thermometry.

Systems and methods for generating adaptive contrast accumulation imaging images are disclosed. A point spread function thinning/skeletonization technique may be performed on contrast enhanced image frames. An aggressiveness parameter of the technique may be adapted temporally and/or spatially. The aggressiveness parameter may be adapted based on various factors, including, but not limited to, time since injection of the contrast agent, signal intensity, and/or vessel size. The images may be temporally accumulated to generate a final sequence of adaptive contrast accumulation imaging images.

The present subject matter relates to techniques for harmonic motion elastography. The disclosed system can include a focused ultrasound (FUS) transducer for applying a push to a target tissue; an imaging transducer for obtaining radio frequency (RF) signals from the target tissue, and a processor configured to estimate the mechanical properties of the target tissue by extracting a shear wave from the RF signals and estimating a shear wave speed.

A thermoacoustic imaging device for coupling to a region of interest on a patient is disclosed. The device includes a housing having a surface, wherein the surface comprises an acoustic coupling portion having a substantially perpendicular extent relative to the surface. In one embodiment, the perpendicular extent extends to the surface. In one embodiment, the perpendicular extent extends to the surface and the outwardly from the surface. In one embodiment, the perpendicular extent extends only from the surface.

Systems and methods are provided for motion corrected wide-band pulse inversion ultrasonic imaging. A first pulse is transmitted, a second pulse is then transmitted after a delay, with the second pulse having different polarity. Echoes of the first pulse and the second pulse are received, using a reception bandwidth that enables capturing at least a portion of a fundamental portion of each pulse. The echoes are processed, and corresponding ultrasound images are generated based on processing. The processing includes determining displacement data between the first pulse echo and the echo of the second pulse for at least one structure in an imaged area; determining one or more displacement corrections based on the displacement data; applying at least one displacement correction to at least one of the first pulse echo and the echo of the second pulse; and combining the first pulse echo and the echo of the second pulse.

An ultrasound imaging system probe comprises an imaging transducer head and a reception circuit for processing received reflected ultrasound signals. The reception circuit comprises an analogue to digital sigma delta converter which comprises a closed loop which comprises a tunable band pass filter. This enables the analog to digital converter to process only the desired frequency band. The ADC conversion bandwidth and ENOB are in this way programmable giving a more efficient probe design, and also enabling analog to digital conversion early in the signal processing chain.

Described herein is an implantable device configured to detect impedance characteristic of a tissue. In certain exemplary devices, the implantable device comprises (a) an ultrasonic transducer configured to emit an ultrasonic backscatter encoding information relating to an impedance characteristic of a tissue based on a modulated current flowing through the ultrasonic transducer; (b) an integrated circuit comprising (i) a variable frequency power supply electrically connected to a first electrode and a second electrode; (ii) a signal detector configured to detect an impedance, voltage, or current in a circuit comprising the variable frequency power supply, the first electrode, the second electrode, and the tissue; and (iii) a modulation circuit configured to modulate the current flowing through the ultrasonic transducer based on the detected impedance, voltage, or current; and the first electrode and the second electrode configured to be implanted into the tissue in electrical connection with each other through the tissue. Further described are systems including one or more implantable devices and an interrogator for operating the implantable device, methods of measuring impedance characteristic of a tissue in a subject, and methods of monitoring or characterizing a tissue in a subject.