Rapid super-resolution blood flow imaging method

Abstract

The invention discloses a rapid super-resolution blood flow imaging method based on an ultrasound microbubble contrast agent. By means of the method, the problem of low blood flow imaging resolution caused by an ultrasonic diffraction limit is mainly solved, and meanwhile super-resolution imaging is accelerated. The method includes the steps that 1, the contrast agent is injected, and ultrasonic video is collected; 2, the video is pretreated, and noise and background tissue are inhibited; 3, moving correction is conducted on the pretreated video; 4, image interpolation is conducted; 5, the center of a microbubble is computed frame by frame by means of a microbubble matching filter; 6, the central position of the microbubble in all frames is recorded; 7, the occurrence frequency of the microbubble in each pixel is counted, and a blood flow super-resolution image is formed by means of gray value. According to the rapid super-resolution blood flow imaging method based on the ultrasound microbubble contrast agent, the blood flow super-resolution image with the resolution exceeding that of traditional ultrasound contrast is formed in short time, more abundant blood flow details are provided for a doctor, and the method assists the doctor in clinical diagnosis.

Description

technical field [0001] The invention relates to the field of ultrasonic imaging systems and methods, in particular to a method for fast super-resolution ultrasonic blood flow imaging. Background technique [0002] The distribution of blood flow in the body and organs is a very common indicator used clinically. Now the main imaging methods are CT angiography (CTA), magnetic resonance angiography (MRA), digital subtraction angiography (DSA), and ultrasound Doppler (CDFI). CT-based angiography technology first injects CT contrast agent into blood vessels, and then performs CT imaging, which can distinguish blood vessels with a diameter of more than 400 μm. Magnetic resonance (MRI)-based angiography technology uses the fluidity of blood in the excited area to suppress the signal of immobile tissue, thereby highlighting the flowing blood. In the case of a field strength of 3.0T, blood vessels with a diameter of more than 300 μm can be distinguished. For fields above 3.0T Strong...

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Problems solved by technology

In the "Nature" science journal, Erico et al. used a special ultra-high-speed sampling ultrasonic device to increase the frame rate of ultrasonic signal acquisition to 500 frames per second, thus shortening the time for forming a super-resolution image to 150s. Strict requirements on the performance of ultrasound equipment are difficult to apply in clinical

The core of ultrasonic blood flow super-resolution is how to quickly and accurately detect enough microbubbles to piece together super-resolution images. The traditional strategy focuses on increasing the frame rate (500 frames / s) and increasing the acquisition time (more than 20 minutes) , both of which bring great difficulties to the clinical application of super-resolution technology

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