ULTRASONIC SHEAR WAVE IMAGING WITH FOCUSED SCANLINE BEAMFORMING

• Main Authors: SHI, YAN, XIE, HUA, ENTREKIN, ROBERT, RANDALL, ROBERT, JEAN-LUC, PETERSON, ROY, B, SHAMDASANI, VIJAY, FERNANDEZ, ANNA TERESA
• Format: Patent
• Language: English; French; German
• Published: 30.07.2014
• Subjects: ANALOGOUS ARRANGEMENTS USING OTHER WAVES; DETERMINING DISTANCE OR VELOCITY BY USE OF RADIO WAVES; DIAGNOSIS; HUMAN NECESSITIES; HYGIENE; IDENTIFICATION; INVESTIGATING OR ANALYSING MATERIALS BY DETERMINING THEIRCHEMICAL OR PHYSICAL PROPERTIES; LOCATING OR PRESENCE-DETECTING BY USE OF THE REFLECTION ORRERADIATION OF RADIO WAVES; MEASURING; MEDICAL OR VETERINARY SCIENCE; PHYSICS; RADIO DIRECTION-FINDING; RADIO NAVIGATION; SURGERY; TESTING

An ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system produces an image of shear wave velocities by transmitting push pulses to generate shear waves. A plurality of tracking lines are transmitted and echoes received by a focusing beamformer adjacent to the location of the push pulses. The tracking lines are sampled in a time-interleaved manner. The echo data acquired along each tracking line is processed to determine the time of peak tissue displacement caused by the shear waves at points along the tracking line, and the times of peaks at adjacent tracking lines compared to compute a local shear wave velocity. The resultant map of shear wave velocity values is color-coded and displayed over an anatomical image of the region of interest.