| CPC A61B 8/5269 (2013.01) [A61B 8/06 (2013.01); A61B 8/488 (2013.01); A61B 8/5207 (2013.01)] | 30 Claims |

|
1. A method for removing a noise-induced bias from ultrasound data in order to reconstruct an image depicting blood flow in which the noise-induced bias is removed, the steps of the method comprising:
(a) accessing with a computer system, ultrasound frame data comprising frames of ultrasound data acquired with different transmitting angles;
(b) forming with the computer system:
a first group of ultrasound frame data by selecting a first number of the frames of ultrasound data corresponding to a first plurality of transmitting angles selected from the different transmitting angles for the first group;
a second group of ultrasound frame data by selecting a second number of the frames of ultrasound data corresponding to a second plurality of transmitting angles selected from the different transmitting angles for the second group;
(c) reconstructing with the computer system:
a first compounded image by compounding the frames of ultrasound data in the first group;
a second compounded image by compounding the frames of ultrasound data in the second group;
(d) producing with the computer system:
first blood flow signal data by clutter filtering the first compounded image;
second blood flow signal data by clutter filtering the second compounded image;
(e) reconstructing a blood flow image with the computer system by computing a correlation between the first blood flow signal data and the second blood flow signal data, the blood flow image depicting blood flow in which noise-induced bias has been removed.
|