Abstract: The invention provides a method for determining a global confidence index for a 2D ultrasound image extracted from a 3D ultrasound volume, wherein the global confidence index indicates the suitability of the 2D ultrasound image for medical measure-ments. The method comprises obtaining a 3D ultrasound volume of a subject and extracting a set of at least one 2D ultrasound image from the 3D ultrasound volume. A set of geometrical indicators are then obtained with a first neural network, wherein each geometrical indicator indicates geometrical features of the anatomy of the subject. The set of 2D ultrasound images are then processed with a second neural network, wherein the output of the second neural network is a set of anatomical indicators and wherein the anatomical indicators indicate at least the presence of anatomical landmarks. A global confidence index is then determined for each one of the set of 2D ultrasound images based on the geometrical indicators and the anatomical indicators.

Abstract: An ultrasound imaging system comprising: a probe (10) with an array of transducer elements (12) for acquiring ultrasound data of a body, including moving tissue and fluid flow; a beamforming system (10, 12, 14, 16) for emitting and receiving ultrasound beams in said body, which uses, for each transmission beam, an ensemble length of more than two temporal samples and less than eight; processing means (40, 50) to process flow Doppler signals comprising adaptive clutter demodulation (21) applied on amplitude signals and mean clutter demodulation applied on phase signals followed by high-pass filtering (22, 32); and display means (55,70) to display images based on said processed flow Doppler signals.

Abstract: The invention relates to an ultrasonic viewing system, for displaying images of an artery using a curved array of transducer elements, comprising means for acquiring (51) of an ultrasonic image sequence and a Doppler color sequence of a segment of artery explored along its longitudinal axis and having walls moving in relation with the cardiac cycle; and comprising processing means for: estimating the velocity and motion amplitude (53, 54, 55) of the artery walls along Doppler color ultrasound scanning lines; estimating the motion amplitude (58) of the artery walls along lines perpendicular to the artery global axis; and further comprising: display means for displaying (60) curves of this last artery wall amplitude on a dedicated display on which the user may have interaction. The invention further relates to an image processing method having steps to be carried out using this system.

Abstract: The invention relates to an ultrasonic image processing system, for processing images in an image sequence representing a segment of artery explored along its longitudinal axis, said artery segment showing moving walls; this system comprising: acquisition means (21) for acquiring an ultrasonic image sequence of a segment of artery explored along its longitudinal axis and having walls moving in relation with the cardiac cycle; semi-automatic detection means (22) for detecting the artery walls in an image of the sequence; automatic rigid tracking means (23) for tracking the corresponding artery walls in other images of the sequence; evaluation means (24) for evaluating the artery wall motion and distensibility; and viewing means (154) for visualizing images. The invention further relates to an ultrasound examination apparatus having a curved array of transducer elements and coupled to this system, having viewing means to visualize the images.