Surgery – Diagnostic testing – Detecting nuclear – electromagnetic – or ultrasonic radiation
Reexamination Certificate
2002-05-10
2004-03-16
Imam, Ali M. (Department: 3737)
Surgery
Diagnostic testing
Detecting nuclear, electromagnetic, or ultrasonic radiation
C600S458000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06705993
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to imaging. More particularly, the present invention pertains to the use of a nonlinear post-beamforming filter in ultrasound imaging.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Many conventional ultrasound scanners create two-dimensional images of tissue located in a region of interest in which brightness of a pixel in the image is based on intensity of echo return following the provision of wave energy directed towards the region of interest. Such images may be formed from a combination of fundamental and harmonic signal components, the former being direct echoes of the transmitted pulse, and the latter being generated in a nonlinear medium, such as tissue, from finite amplitude ultrasound propagation. As is known, many times, ultrasound images can be improved by suppressing the fundamental and emphasizing the harmonic signal components.
Propagation of ultrasound wave energy in biological tissues is known to be nonlinear, giving rise to generation of harmonics. In harmonic imaging, energy is transmitted at a fundamental frequency, f
0
, and, for example, an image may be formed using energy at the second harmonic, 2f
0
.
Further, generally, in many instances, ultrasound contrast agents have been used for ultrasound imaging, e.g., imaged by using standard echo imaging or second harmonic imaging. Harmonic imaging is usually preferred over standard echo imaging when contrast agents are present because, for example, the harmonic signal components returned from contrast agents is generally much larger than that from surrounding tissue. Furthermore, for example, harmonic imaging provides a more desirable contrast between blood and tissue, and is able to reduce artifacts due to phase aberrations in the body. However, since harmonic imaging still receives signal from tissue, the specificity between contrast agent and tissue is still limited.
The diagnostic applications of ultrasound imaging have expanded enormously in recent years. Various improvements of ultrasound imaging as a diagnostic technique for medical decision-making have been established. Some of these improvements were with regard to ultrasound hardware/equipment, such as phased array transducers. Other improvements have included the introduction of signal processing algorithms that produced image enhancements, or more even, new forms of imaging such as color flow Doppler imaging.
Various methods to exploit the nonlinear nature of ultrasonic propagation in tissue media are being used in an attempt to provide improved imaging techniques for enhancing ultrasonic imaging, with or without the use of contrast agents. For example, second harmonic imaging improves the image contrast by significantly reducing the acoustic clutter from intervening tissue layers. This is particular advantageous for difficult to image patients.
The simplest implementation of second harmonic imaging is the use of a post-beamforming bandpass filter to separate the second harmonic from the fundamental. The assumption is that if the transmitted imaging pulse is carefully designed to have frequency components in the band f
0
−B/2 to f
0
+B/2, then second-order linear effects produce new frequency components in the band 2f
0
−B to 2f
0
+B. However, this technique puts significant constraints on the transducer bandwidth, f
0
−B/2 to 2f
0
+B. Significant signal loss occurs since most transducers are not capable of supporting such a bandwidth.
Various enhancements have been made to this simple implementation of second harmonic imaging. For example, a pulse inversion technique has been proposed and described in Simpson et al., “Pulse Inversion Doppler: A New Method for Detecting Nonlinear Echoes from Microbubble Contrast Agents,”
IEEE Trans. On Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control
, Vol. 46, No. 2, (1999), and also M. A. Averkiou, “Tissue Harmonic Imaging,” 2000
IEEE Ultrasonics Symposium
, Vol. 2, pp. 1563-1572 (2000).
Further, other ultrasonic imaging techniques are moving rapidly towards employing post-beamforming filters combined with nonlinear imaging modes. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 6,290,647 B1 to Krishnan, entitled, “Contrast Agent Imaging with Subharmonic and Harmonic Signals in Diagnostic Medical Ultrasound,” issued Sep. 18, 2001, a combination of the results of linear filtering of harmonic and subharmonic components are used to produce improved contrast imaging. Further, another ultrasound imaging approach is described in an article by Haider, B. and Chiao, R. Y., entitled “Higher Order Nonlinear Ultrasonic Imaging,” 1999
IEEE Ultrasonics Symposium
, Vol. 2, pp 1527-1531 (1999).
However, such techniques and enhancements are not without their own limitations. For example, the approach of Haider and Chiao performs nonlinear imaging by recognizing the nonlinear behavior of the system as a static polynomial-type nonlinearity. It does not recognize or take into consideration the dynamic behavior of the system.
Further, the approach by, for example, Haider and Chiao, and also the pulse inversion techniques, require the use of multiple transmits in the same direction for estimating coefficients of harmonic bases functions of the models utilized. When relying on the use of multiple transmissions, movement of the imaged region results in undesirable degradation of the image produced by the ultrasound system.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention provides for ultrasound imaging through the use of a dynamic nonlinear post-beamforming filter (e.g., based on a pth-order Volterra model) capable of separating the linear and nonlinear components of image data, e.g., extracting the nonlinear components of the image data. The techniques described are applicable to both tissue and contrast agent nonlinearity, but are clearly not limited thereto. A system identification algorithm for deriving the filter coefficients is also provided. The filter-based approach is capable of extracting a broad band of frequencies that allow for contrast enhancement while preserving image detail. True nonlinear interaction between these frequency components is accounted for with use of a pth-order Volterra filter.
A method for use in ultrasound imaging of matter in a region according to the present invention includes providing wave energy into the region. The wave energy has a pulse spectrum centered at a fundamental frequency. Wave energy returned from the region is transduced to form a set of receive signals and the set of receive signals are beamformed to provide beamformed data representative of at least a portion of the region. The linear and non-linear components of the beamformed data are separated based on a pth-order Volterra model, where p is equal to or greater than 2. At least the non-linear components of the beamformed data are processed for use in forming an image.
In one embodiment of the method, separating the linear and non-linear components of the beamformed data based on a pth-order Volterra model includes applying a second-order Volterra filter to the beamformed data. The second-order Volterra filter is preferably defined by coefficients for a linear filter kernel and a quadratic non-linear filter kernel.
In another embodiment of the method, separating the linear and non-linear components of the beamformed data based on a pth-order Volterra model includes applying a pth-order Volterra filter to the beamformed data, wherein the pth-order Volterra filter is defined by coefficients for a linear filter kernel and one or more non-linear filter kernels of the pth-order Volterra filter. Further, the coefficients for the pth-order Volterra filter are determined using the transduced wave energy returned from at least a portion of the region in response to a single pulse of wave energy.
In another embodiment of the method, processing at least the non-linear components of the beamformed data for use in forming an image includes comparing or compounding at least a portion of the non-linear components to at least a portion of the linear components for use in characteriza
Ebbini Emad S.
Phukpattaranont Pornchai
Imam Ali M.
Mueting Raasch & Gebhardt, P.A.
Regents of the University of Minnesota
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