Surgery – Diagnostic testing – Detecting nuclear – electromagnetic – or ultrasonic radiation
Reexamination Certificate
1999-08-27
2001-05-08
Lateef, Marvin M. (Department: 3737)
Surgery
Diagnostic testing
Detecting nuclear, electromagnetic, or ultrasonic radiation
C600S447000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06228030
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Ultrasound imaging involves the display of information obtained from reflections of (echoes of) pulses of ultrasonic waves directed into the body. These echoes contain information about the underlying structure of the tissue and blood flow in the region exposed to ultrasound waves. The sophistication and capabilities of ultrasound imaging systems have increased dramatically in recent years, resulting in bulkier and costlier systems which collect an ever increasing volume of data for each imaging session. The explosion in system cost and amount of data collected creates significant problems for the health care industry which must control equipment costs, data storage costs, and labor costs associated with diagnostic testing. Today, many rural and remotely located health care facilities cannot afford to purchase, install or maintain the bulky and costly sophisticated ultrasound imaging systems presently on the market. Furthermore, physicians do not wish to use stripped down or otherwise inferior versions of current systems, since the sophisticated capabilities are often necessary to obtain the most accurate diagnosis possible. Accordingly, there is a significant and unmet need for an ultrasound imaging system which is physically small and/or portable, which collects data in a manner that minimizes storage needs, and which is significantly less expensive than current state of the art systems, yet which provides diagnostic capabilities that are equal to or better than existing bulky and costly fill feature systems. The present invention fulfills such needs.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention provides systems and methods for obtaining ultrasound imaging data at an adjustable collection image frame rate, as well as at an adjustable acquisition rate.
The present invention also provides systems and methods to use a frame correlation process acting on ultrasound imaging data to locate the occurrence of a predetermined event in a physiologic cycle.
The present invention further provides systems and methods to reduce speckle in full motion ultrasound image data by filtering image frames of each physiologic cycle across the cycles, instead of filtering from frame to frame.
The present invention also provides a scheme for packaging ultrasound imaging data obtained from anatomic structures which have periodic physiologic motion that define successive physiologic cycles. The imaging data is packaged into image loops. Each image loop includes frame data representing a plurality of image frames acquired at spaced time intervals within a physiologic cycle. A communication scheme is provided for transmitting the image loops to a remote location for playback in real-time or pseudo real-time.
The present invention also provides a scheme for increasing the effective acquisition frame rate in a medical ultrasound imaging system which acquires imaging data of an anatomic structure having periodic physiologic motion that defines successive physiologic cycles.
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“The Flexibility of Configurable Computing”, Villasenor and Hutchings, IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, Sep. 1998, vol. 15, No. 5, pp67-84.
Declaration of Stuart Carp (1 page).
Declaration of John Williams (7 pages).
Knell Christopher B.
Randall Kevin S.
Urbano Joseph A.
Wood Andrew J.
Brinks Hofer Gilson & Lione
Ecton Inc.
Imam Ali M.
Lateef Marvin M.
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