US 11,737,725 B2
Intelligent guided wave elastography
Carolina Amador Carrascal, Everett, MA (US); Francois Guy Gerard Marie Vignon, Andover, MA (US); and Seungsoo Kim, Andover, MA (US)
Assigned to KONINKLIJKE PHILIPS N.V., Eindhoven (NL)
Appl. No. 17/260,583
Filed by KONINKLIJKE PHILIPS N.V., Eindhoven (NL)
PCT Filed Jul. 17, 2019, PCT No. PCT/EP2019/069191
§ 371(c)(1), (2) Date Jan. 15, 2021,
PCT Pub. No. WO2020/016269, PCT Pub. Date Jan. 23, 2020.
Claims priority of provisional application 62/699,789, filed on Jul. 18, 2018.
Prior Publication US 2021/0259661 A1, Aug. 26, 2021
Int. Cl. A61B 8/08 (2006.01); A61B 8/00 (2006.01); G01S 7/52 (2006.01); G01S 15/89 (2006.01)
CPC A61B 8/0858 (2013.01) [A61B 8/463 (2013.01); A61B 8/485 (2013.01); A61B 8/5215 (2013.01); A61B 8/5269 (2013.01); A61B 8/543 (2013.01); G01S 7/52053 (2013.01); G01S 15/8915 (2013.01)] 16 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. An ultrasound imaging system for shear wave imaging comprising:
an ultrasound transducer configured to acquire echoes responsive to ultrasound pulses transmitted toward a bounded target tissue, wherein the bounded target tissue comprises tissue of finite size;
a beamformer configured to:
transmit, from the ultrasound transducer, tracking pulses in response to a push pulse, wherein the push pulse generates shear waves in the bounded target tissue and the tracking pulses are spatially planned to intersect the shear waves at one or more locales; and
receive, from the ultrasound transducer, echo signals where the tracking pulses intersected the shear waves; and
a processor in communication with the beamformer and configured to:
store tracking echo data generated from the received echo signals;
determine a thickness of the bounded target tissue and an angular orientation of the bounded target tissue relative to the ultrasound transducer and the push pulse;
apply a directional filter to the tracking echo data to generate directionally filtered shear wave data based on the thickness of the bounded target tissue and the angular orientation of the bounded target tissue relative to the ultrasound transducer and the push pulse;
estimate velocities of the shear waves at different shear wave frequencies based on the filtered shear wave data by fitting the filtered shear wave data to a Lamb wave model; and
determine a stiffness value of the bounded target tissue using the estimated velocities and the thickness of the bounded target tissue and the angular orientation of the bounded target tissue.