Abstract: Described herein are methods and apparatus for increasing sensitivity of ultrasound imaging of fluid flow in an object of interest. Ultrasound imaging of blood perfusion can be performed without contrast enhancement. Embodiments include transforming a spatiotemporal echo data array into a three-dimensional perfusion data array having a spatial dimension, a slow-time dimension, and a frame-time dimension, and filtering the perfusion data array with an eigen passband clutter filter. The clutter filter can increase sensitivity and utility of ultrasound imaging of fluid flow. In some aspects, the method can yield blood flow signal power and perfusion values well separated from tissue clutter. In an example, enhancements to ischemic tissue perfusion maps in a murine model are shown.

Abstract: Systems and methods are provided for employing informational models trained using the Autoprogressive Algorithm to learn the mechanical behavior and internal structure of biological materials using a sparse sampling of force and displacement measurements. Forces are applied to the biological material and the force and displacement are measured and applied to the AutoP algorithm. Additionally, a coordinate based scaling factor is applied to the measured displacement.

Abstract: Described herein are methods and apparatus for increasing sensitivity of ultrasound imaging of fluid flow in an object of interest. Ultrasound imaging of blood perfusion can be performed without contrast enhancement. Embodiments include transforming a spatiotemporal echo data array into a three-dimensional perfusion data array having a spatial dimension, a slow-time dimension, and a frame-time dimension, and filtering the perfusion data array with an eigen passband clutter filter. The clutter filter can increase sensitivity and utility of ultrasound imaging of fluid flow. In some aspects, the method can yield blood flow signal power and perfusion values well separated from tissue clutter. In an example, enhancements to ischemic tissue perfusion maps in a murine model are shown.

Abstract: An imaging system includes a display device and a transducer to transmit acoustic pulses modulated with a carrier frequency and to collect at least a portion of a high-frequency backscatter signal comprising radio frequency (RF) data. A processing device is operatively coupled to the transducer probe and to the display device, and to: calculate a summation of a square of a real part and a square of an imaginary part of the backscatter signal, to generate an envelope signal including a mode-specific image suitable for display on the display device; calculate a difference of the square of the real part and the square of the imaginary part of the backscatter signal, to generate a complement signal; demodulate the complement signal to generate a low-frequency complement image suitable for display; and display the complement image on the display device to improve diagnostic imaging.

Abstract: Systems and methods are provided for employing informational models trained using the Autoprogressive Algorithm to learn the mechanical behavior of biological materials using a sparse sampling of force and displacement measurements. The constitutive matrix normally used to solve the inverse problem is replaced with ANNs.

Abstract: An imaging system includes a display device and a transducer to transmit acoustic pulses modulated with a carrier frequency and to collect at least a portion of a high-frequency backscatter signal comprising radio frequency (RF) data. A processing device is operatively coupled to the transducer probe and to the display device, and to: calculate a summation of a square of a real part and a square of an imaginary part of the backscatter signal, to generate an envelope signal including a mode-specific image suitable for display on the display device; calculate a difference of the square of the real part and the square of the imaginary part of the backscatter signal, to generate a complement signal; demodulate the complement signal to generate a low-frequency complement image suitable for display; and display the complement image on the display device to improve diagnostic imaging.

Abstract: A system includes an acoustic radiation force source that is structured to generate an acoustic radiation force at one or more frequencies. A shear wave transmission device is embedded in a mass including a biologic material. The shear wave transmission device is responsive to the acoustic radiation force source to transmit shear waves through the biologic material. A Doppler ultrasonic device detects the shear waves and generates data representative of the shear waves. A processing device determines one or more mechanical properties of the biologic material from the data.

Abstract: A system includes an acoustic radiation force source that is structured to generate an acoustic radiation force at one or more frequencies. A shear wave transmission device is embedded in a mass including a biologic material. The shear wave transmission device is responsive to the acoustic radiation force source to transmit shear waves through the biologic material. A Doppler ultrasonic device detects the shear waves and generates data representative of the shear waves. A processing device determines one or more mechanical properties of the biologic material from the data.

Abstract: A system includes an acoustic radiation force source that is structured to generate an acoustic radiation force at one or more frequencies. A shear wave transmission device is embedded in a mass including a biologic material. The shear wave transmission device is responsive to the acoustic radiation force source to transmit shear waves through the biologic material. A Doppler ultrasonic device detects the shear waves and generates data representative of the shear waves. A processing device determines one or more mechanical properties of the biologic material from the data.

Abstract: A method for motion estimation within biological tissue is disclosed. The method involves acoustically coupling a transducer to a target biological tissue, which transducer emits an ultrasonic signal and collects the energy back-scattered by the target issue. A first set of energy data is collected and stored, then target tissue is axially compressed and a second set of ultrasonic energy data is collected and stored. One of the first and second data sets is warped to account for the anticipated compression forming a warped data set. This warped data set is cross-correlated with the unwarped one of the first and said second data sets to obtain a fine scale displacement of said target biological tissue from the displacement estimated by the warping. This fine scale displacement is summed with the warped data set to obtain a total axial displacement. A gradient of the total axial displacement is taken and used to form a strain image. An apparatus for practicing this method is also disclosed.

Abstract: Tissue signatures are obtained from first and second order statistics of an image texture to discriminate between different normal tissues and to detect abnormal conditions. These signatures described intrinsic backscatter properties of the tissue imaged and are used as the basis of an automatic tissue characterization algorithm. A device for on-line classifying of the texture of an image measures a total of four first and second order statistical properties of echo signals of a region of interest (ROI) selected by an operator, the echo signals being contained in an image memory. These can be used to obtain the tissue signatures, to detect low contrast lesions by machine, and to produce parametric images.

Abstract: Tissue signatures are obtained from first and second order statistics of an image texture to discriminate between different normal tissues and to detect abnormal conditions. These signatures describe intrinsic backscatter properties of the tissue imaged, and are used as the basis of an automatic tissue characterization algorithm. A device for on-line classifying of the texture of an image measures a total of four first and second order statistical properties of echo signals of a region of interest (ROI) selected by an operator, the echo signals being contained in an image memory. These can be used to obtain the tissue signatures, to detect low contrast lesions by machine, and to produce parametric images.