Blood flow richness measuring method, ultrasonic imaging method and ultrasonic imaging system

Abstract

The invention discloses a blood flow richness measuring method, an ultrasonic imaging method and an ultrasonic imaging system.The method comprises the steps that an ultrasonic probe is controlled to emit first ultrasonic waves to target tissue, and echoes of the first ultrasonic waves returned by the target tissue are received to obtain first echo signals; performing signal processing on the first echo signal to obtain blood flow data of a plurality of pixel points corresponding to a target section of the target tissue; for each to-be-tested pixel point in the plurality of pixel points, according to the blood flow data of a plurality of adjacent pixel points in a preset range around the to-be-tested pixel point, determining the number of the adjacent pixel points of which the blood flow data is greater than a preset threshold value, and according to the number, obtaining the blood flow richness of each to-be-tested pixel point; generating a blood flow richness image and / or a blood flow richness parameter according to the blood flow richness of each pixel point to be detected; and displaying the blood flow richness image and / or the blood flow richness parameter. The method can objectively reflect the blood flow richness of the target tissue.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The present invention relates to the technical field of ultrasonic imaging, and more specifically to a blood flow richness measurement method, an ultrasonic imaging method and an ultrasonic imaging system. Background Art

[0002] In routine examinations by ultrasound doctors, non-invasive diagnosis of tumors is an advantage of ultrasound examinations. Malignant tumors are often accompanied by special blood supply, so ultrasound blood flow imaging technology can be used to help identify malignant tumors. Ultrasound blood flow imaging refers to the technology of using the Doppler principle to monitor blood supply by monitoring the frequency changes of ultrasound echoes.

[0003] During routine examinations, doctors usually use ultrasound blood flow imaging to check the richness of blood flow in the lesion area. In existing blood flow imaging technology, the richness of blood flow is usually adjustable. When analyzing the blood flow data of the same malignant tumor, when the sensitivity is adjusted to a higher level, the blood flow is more abundant; when the sensitivity is adjusted to a lower level, the blood flow is more scarce. Therefore, current blood flow imaging technology cannot objectively show the richness of blood flow. Summary of the invention

[0004] A series of simplified concepts are introduced in the Summary of the Invention, which will be further described in detail in the Detailed Description of the Invention. The Summary of the Invention does not mean to attempt to define the key features and essential technical features of the claimed technical solution, nor does it mean to attempt to determine the scope of protection of the claimed technical solution.

[0005] An embodiment of the present invention provides a method for measuring blood flow richness, the method comprising:

[0006] Controlling the ultrasonic probe to transmit a first ultrasonic wave to a target tissue, and receiving an echo of the first ultrasonic wave returned by the target tissue to obtain a first echo signal;

[0007] performing signal processing on the first echo signal to obtain blood flow data of a plurality of pixel points corresponding to a target section of the target tissue;

[0008] For each pixel to be tested among the multiple pixel points, determine the number of neighboring pixel points whose blood flow data is greater than a preset threshold value according to the blood flow data of multiple neighboring pixel points within a preset range around the pixel to be tested, and obtain the blood flow richness of each pixel to be tested according to the number;

[0009] Generate a blood flow richness image and / or a blood flow richness parameter according to the blood flow richness of each pixel to be measured;

[0010] The blood flow richness image and / or the blood flow richness parameter are displayed.

[0011] In some embodiments, obtaining the blood flow richness of the pixel to be measured according to the number includes:

[0012] The ratio of the number to the total number of the plurality of adjacent pixel points is used as the blood flow richness of the pixel point to be tested.

[0013] In some embodiments, the method further comprises:

[0014] generating a shear wave elastic image of the target section;

[0015] The shear wave elasticity image and the blood flow richness image and / or the blood flow richness parameter are displayed on the same screen.

[0016] In some embodiments, the method further comprises:

[0017] Determine, according to the blood flow richness of each pixel to be measured, a first region whose blood flow richness is higher than a preset standard, and determine, according to the correspondence between the blood flow data and the shear wave elasticity image, a second region in the shear wave elasticity image corresponding to the first region;

[0018] When displaying the shear wave elasticity image, the second region is marked.

[0019] In some embodiments, generating the shear wave elastic image of the target section includes:

[0020] controlling the ultrasonic probe to transmit a second ultrasonic wave to the target tissue to track the shear wave propagating in the target tissue;

[0021] receiving the echo of the second ultrasonic wave returned by the target tissue to obtain a second echo signal;

[0022] generating a shear wave elastic image of the target section in real time according to the second echo signal;

[0023] The first ultrasonic wave and the second ultrasonic wave are emitted alternately to synchronously obtain the elasticity data and the blood flow data.

[0024] In some embodiments, the method further comprises:

[0025] controlling the ultrasonic probe to transmit a third ultrasonic wave toward the target tissue;

[0026] receiving the echo of the third ultrasonic wave returned by the target tissue to obtain a third echo signal;

[0027] Generating a tissue structure image of the target section in real time according to the third echo signal, and displaying the tissue structure image, the shear wave elasticity image, the blood flow richness image and / or the blood flow richness parameter on the same screen;

[0028] The first ultrasonic wave, the second ultrasonic wave and the third ultrasonic wave are emitted alternately to synchronously obtain the tissue structure data, the elasticity data and the blood flow data.

[0029] In some embodiments, the shear wave elasticity image is pre-generated before obtaining the blood flow data, and the method further comprises:

[0030] Acquire a first tissue structure image of the target section corresponding to the shear wave elasticity image;

[0031] Generating a real-time tissue structure image of the target tissue in real time, and determining a second tissue structure image of the target section in the real-time tissue structure image according to a matching degree between the real-time tissue structure image and the first tissue structure image;

[0032] The controlling the ultrasonic probe to transmit the first ultrasonic wave to the target tissue includes: controlling the ultrasonic probe to transmit the first ultrasonic wave at a position corresponding to the second tissue structure image to obtain the blood flow data of the target section.

[0033] In some embodiments, the method further comprises displaying the second tissue structure image and the blood flow richness image and / or the blood flow richness parameter on the same screen.

[0034] In some embodiments, generating the shear wave elastic image of the target section includes:

[0035] Acquire a third tissue structure image of the target section corresponding to the blood flow data;

[0036] Generating a real-time tissue structure image of the target tissue in real time, and determining a fourth tissue structure image of the target section in the real-time tissue structure image according to a matching degree between the real-time tissue structure image and the third tissue structure image;

[0037] Controlling the ultrasound probe to transmit a second ultrasonic wave to the target tissue at a position corresponding to the third tissue structure image to track the shear wave propagating in the target tissue;

[0038] receiving the echo of the second ultrasonic wave returned by the target tissue to obtain a second echo signal;

[0039] The shear wave elasticity image of the target section is generated in real time according to the second echo signal.

[0040] In some embodiments, the method further comprises displaying the fourth tissue structure image together with the blood flow richness image and / or the blood flow richness parameter on the same screen.

[0041] In some embodiments, the method further includes generating a tissue structure image of the target section, and displaying the shear wave elasticity image, the tissue structure image, the blood flow richness image and / or the blood flow richness parameter on the same screen; generating the shear wave elasticity image and the tissue structure image of the target section includes:

[0042] Before or after obtaining the blood flow data, controlling the ultrasound probe to alternately transmit a second ultrasonic wave and a third ultrasonic wave to the target tissue at a position corresponding to the blood flow data, wherein the second ultrasonic wave is used to track the shear wave propagating in the target tissue;

[0043] receiving the echo of the second ultrasonic wave returned by the target tissue to obtain a second echo signal, and receiving the echo of the third ultrasonic wave returned by the target tissue to obtain a third echo signal;

[0044] A shear wave elasticity image of the target section is generated according to the second echo signal, and a tissue structure image of the target section is generated according to the third echo signal.

[0045] In some embodiments, displaying the shear wave elasticity image and the blood flow richness image on the same screen comprises:

[0046] The blood flow richness image is superimposed on the shear wave elasticity image and displayed, or the blood flow richness image and the shear wave elasticity image are displayed independently.

[0047] In some embodiments, the method further comprises generating a tissue structure image of the target section, and displaying the tissue structure image, the shear wave elasticity image and the blood flow richness image on the same screen;

[0048] The blood flow richness image is superimposed and displayed on the tissue structure image or the shear wave elasticity image, or the blood flow richness image, the tissue structure image and the shear wave elasticity image are displayed independently.

[0049] In some embodiments, the method further comprises:

[0050] Generate a Doppler color blood flow image or a blood flow energy image of the target section according to the blood flow data;

[0051] The Doppler color blood flow image or the blood flow energy image is displayed on the same screen as the blood flow richness image and / or the blood flow richness parameter.

[0052] Another aspect of an embodiment of the present invention provides an ultrasonic imaging method, the method comprising:

[0053] Controlling the ultrasonic probe to transmit a first ultrasonic wave to a target section of a target tissue, and receiving an echo of the first ultrasonic wave returned by the target tissue to obtain a first echo signal;

[0054] Controlling the ultrasonic probe to transmit a second ultrasonic wave to the target section of the target tissue to track the shear wave propagating in the target tissue, and receiving an echo of the second ultrasonic wave to obtain a second echo signal;

[0055] Controlling the ultrasonic probe to transmit a third ultrasonic wave to the target section of the target tissue, and receiving an echo of the third ultrasonic wave to obtain a third echo signal;

[0056] generating a blood flow image of the target section according to the first echo signal;

[0057] generating a shear wave elastic image of the target section according to the second echo signal;

[0058] generating a first tissue structure image of the target section according to the third echo signal;

[0059] The blood flow image, the shear wave elasticity image and the first tissue structure image are displayed on the same screen.

[0060] In some embodiments, the first ultrasonic wave, the second ultrasonic wave, and the third ultrasonic wave are transmitted alternately to synchronously generate the blood flow image, the shear wave elasticity image, and the first tissue structure image.

[0061] In some embodiments, the shear wave elasticity image is pre-generated before the first ultrasonic wave is emitted, and the method further comprises:

[0062] Acquire a second tissue structure image of the target section corresponding to the shear wave elasticity image;

[0063] Generating a real-time tissue structure image of the target tissue in real time, matching the real-time tissue structure image with the second tissue structure image, and determining the first tissue structure image of the target section in the real-time tissue structure image;

[0064] The controlling the ultrasonic probe to transmit the first ultrasonic wave to the target section of the target tissue includes: controlling the ultrasonic probe to transmit the first ultrasonic wave at a position corresponding to the first tissue structure image to generate the blood flow image of the target section.

[0065] In some embodiments, the blood flow image is pre-generated before transmitting the second ultrasonic wave, and the method further includes:

[0066] Acquire a third tissue structure image of the target section corresponding to the blood flow image;

[0067] Generating a real-time tissue structure image of the target tissue in real time, matching the real-time tissue structure image with the third tissue structure image, and determining the first tissue structure image of the target section in the real-time tissue structure image;

[0068] The controlling the ultrasonic probe to transmit the second ultrasonic wave to the target section of the target tissue includes: controlling the ultrasonic probe to transmit the second ultrasonic wave at a position corresponding to the first tissue structure image to generate the shear wave elasticity image of the target section.

[0069] Another aspect of an embodiment of the present invention provides an ultrasound imaging system, comprising:

[0070] Ultrasound probe;

[0071] A transmitting circuit, used for stimulating the ultrasonic probe to transmit ultrasonic waves to the target tissue;

[0072] A receiving circuit, used for controlling the ultrasonic probe to receive the ultrasonic echo to obtain the ultrasonic echo signal;

[0073] A processor, configured to generate an ultrasonic image of the target tissue according to the echo signal, and the processor is further configured to execute the steps of the blood flow richness measurement method as described above;

[0074] A display is used to display the ultrasound image.

[0075] A fourth aspect of an embodiment of the present invention provides an ultrasonic imaging system, comprising:

[0076] Ultrasound probe;

[0077] A transmitting circuit, used for stimulating the ultrasonic probe to transmit ultrasonic waves to the target tissue;

[0078] A receiving circuit, used for controlling the ultrasonic probe to receive the ultrasonic echo to obtain the ultrasonic echo signal;

[0079] a processor, configured to generate an ultrasonic image of the target tissue according to the echo signal, the processor being further configured to execute the steps of the ultrasonic imaging method as described above;

[0080] A display is used to display the ultrasound image.

[0081] The blood flow richness measurement method of the embodiment of the present invention obtains the blood flow richness of the pixel to be tested based on the number of adjacent pixels whose blood flow data around the pixel to be tested is greater than a preset threshold, and can objectively reflect the blood flow richness of the target tissue without being affected by sensitivity adjustment; the ultrasound imaging method of the embodiment of the present invention can display the blood flow image, shear wave elasticity image and tissue structure image of the same target section on the same screen, making it convenient for users to comprehensively analyze the three to obtain more accurate diagnostic results. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0082] The above and other purposes, features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent by describing the embodiments of the present invention in more detail in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. The accompanying drawings are used to provide a further understanding of the embodiments of the present invention and constitute a part of the specification. Together with the embodiments of the present invention, they are used to explain the present invention and do not constitute a limitation of the present invention. In the accompanying drawings, the same reference numerals generally represent the same components or steps.

[0083] Figure 1 A structural block diagram of an ultrasound imaging system according to an embodiment of the present invention is shown;

[0084] Figure 2 A schematic flow chart showing a method for measuring blood flow richness according to an embodiment of the present invention;

[0085] Figure 3 A schematic diagram showing a pixel to be tested and adjacent pixels according to an embodiment of the present invention;

[0086] Figure 4 A schematic diagram showing a Doppler color blood flow image and a blood flow richness image according to an embodiment of the present invention;

[0087] Figure 5 A schematic diagram showing the alternate emission of a first ultrasonic wave, a second ultrasonic wave and a third ultrasonic wave according to an embodiment of the present invention;

[0088] Figure 6 A schematic diagram showing an ultrasonic imaging method according to an embodiment of the present invention;

[0089] Figure 7 A schematic diagram showing a shear wave elasticity image and a Doppler color blood flow image displayed on the same screen according to an embodiment of the present invention;

[0090] Figure 8 A schematic diagram showing the display of a shear wave elasticity image and a Doppler color blood flow image on the same screen according to another embodiment of the present invention. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0091] In order to make the purpose, technical scheme and advantages of the present invention more obvious, the exemplary embodiments according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. Obviously, the described embodiments are only part of the embodiments of the present invention, rather than all the embodiments of the present invention, and it should be understood that the present invention is not limited to the exemplary embodiments described herein. Based on the embodiments of the present invention described in the present invention, all other embodiments obtained by those skilled in the art without creative work should fall within the protection scope of the present invention.

[0092] In the following description, a large number of specific details are provided to provide a more thorough understanding of the present invention. However, it is apparent to those skilled in the art that the present invention can be implemented without one or more of these details. In other examples, in order to avoid confusion with the present invention, some technical features well known in the art are not described.

[0093] It should be understood that the present invention can be implemented in different forms and should not be interpreted as limited to the embodiments set forth herein. On the contrary, these embodiments are provided to make the disclosure thorough and complete and to fully convey the scope of the present invention to those skilled in the art.

[0094] The purpose of the terms used herein is only to describe specific embodiments and is not intended to be limiting of the present invention. When used herein, the singular forms "one", "an" and "said / the" are also intended to include plural forms, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It should also be understood that the terms "consisting of" and / or "comprising", when used in this specification, determine the presence of the features, integers, steps, operations, elements and / or parts, but do not exclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, operations, elements, parts and / or groups. When used herein, the term "and / or" includes any and all combinations of the relevant listed items.

[0095] In order to fully understand the present invention, a detailed structure will be proposed in the following description to illustrate the technical solution proposed by the present invention. The optional embodiments of the present invention are described in detail as follows, but in addition to these detailed descriptions, the present invention may also have other implementations.

[0096] Next, first refer to Figure 1 An ultrasound imaging system according to an embodiment of the present invention is described. Figure 1 FIG. 1 is a schematic structural block diagram of an ultrasound imaging system 100 according to an embodiment of the present invention.

[0097] like Figure 1As shown, the ultrasound imaging system 100 includes an ultrasound probe 110, a transmitting circuit 112, a receiving circuit 114, a processor 116, and a display 118. Further, the ultrasound imaging system may also include a transmit / receive selection switch 120 and a beamforming module 122, and the transmitting circuit 112 and the receiving circuit 114 may be connected to the ultrasound probe 110 through the transmit / receive selection switch 120.

[0098] The ultrasonic probe 110 includes a plurality of transducer array elements disposed therein, and the plurality of array elements may be arranged in a linear array or a convex array. The transducer array elements are used to transmit ultrasonic waves according to an excitation electrical signal, or to convert received ultrasonic waves into electrical signals, so each array element may be used to realize the mutual conversion between electrical pulse signals and ultrasonic waves, thereby transmitting ultrasonic waves to the target tissue of the object under test, and may also be used to receive ultrasonic waves echoed back by the tissue. When performing ultrasonic testing, the transmitting sequence and the receiving sequence may be used to control which array elements are used to transmit ultrasonic waves and which array elements are used to receive ultrasonic waves, or to control the array elements to transmit ultrasonic waves or receive ultrasonic waves echoes in time slots. The array elements participating in ultrasonic wave transmission may be excited by electrical signals at the same time, thereby transmitting ultrasonic waves at the same time; or, the array elements participating in ultrasonic wave beam transmission may also be excited by a plurality of electrical signals with a certain time interval, thereby continuously transmitting ultrasonic waves with a certain time interval.

[0099] During the ultrasonic imaging process, the processor 116 controls the transmitting circuit 112 to send the delayed focused transmitting pulse to the ultrasonic probe 110 through the transmitting / receiving selection switch 120. The ultrasonic probe 110 is stimulated by the transmitting pulse to transmit an ultrasonic beam to the tissue of the target area of ​​the object to be measured, and receives the ultrasonic echo with tissue information reflected from the tissue of the target area after a certain delay, and reconverts the ultrasonic echo into an electrical signal. The receiving circuit 114 receives the electrical signal converted and generated by the ultrasonic probe 110, obtains the ultrasonic echo signal, and sends these ultrasonic echo signals to the beamforming module 122, which performs focusing delay, weighting and channel summing on the ultrasonic echo data, and then sends them to the processor 116. The processor 116 performs signal detection, signal enhancement, data conversion, logarithmic compression and other processing on the ultrasonic echo signal to form an ultrasonic image. The ultrasonic image obtained by the processor 116 can be displayed on the display 118 or stored in the memory 124.

[0100] Optionally, the processor 116 may be implemented as software, hardware, firmware or any combination thereof, and may use a single or multiple application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), a single or multiple general purpose integrated circuits, a single or multiple microprocessors, a single or multiple programmable logic devices, or any combination of the aforementioned circuits and / or devices, or other suitable circuits or devices. Furthermore, the processor 116 may control other components in the ultrasound imaging system 100 to perform the corresponding steps of the methods in various embodiments of the present specification.

[0101] The display 118 is connected to the processor 116, and the display 118 may be a touch screen, a liquid crystal display, etc.; or, the display 118 may be an independent display such as a liquid crystal display, a television, etc., which is independent of the ultrasound imaging system 100; or, the display 118 may be a display screen of an electronic device such as a smart phone or a tablet computer, etc. The number of the display 118 may be one or more.

[0102] The display 118 can display the ultrasound image obtained by the processor 116. In addition, while displaying the ultrasound image, the display 118 can also provide the user with a graphical interface for human-computer interaction. One or more controlled objects are set on the graphical interface, and the user is provided with a human-computer interaction device to input operation instructions to control these controlled objects, thereby performing corresponding control operations. For example, an icon is displayed on the graphical interface, and the icon can be operated by the human-computer interaction device to perform a specific function, such as drawing a region of interest box on the ultrasound image.

[0103] Optionally, the ultrasound imaging system 100 may further include other human-machine interaction devices in addition to the display 118, which are connected to the processor 116. For example, the processor 116 may be connected to the human-machine interaction device via an external input / output port, and the external input / output port may be a wireless communication module, or a wired communication module, or a combination of the two. The external input / output port may also be implemented based on USB, bus protocols such as CAN, and / or wired network protocols.

[0104] The human-computer interaction device may include an input device for detecting user input information, which may be, for example, a control instruction for ultrasonic transmission / reception timing, an operation input instruction for drawing points, lines or frames on an ultrasonic image, or other instruction types. The input device may include a keyboard, a mouse, a scroll wheel, a trackball, a mobile input device (such as a mobile device with a touch screen, a mobile phone, etc.), a multi-function knob, etc., or a combination of multiple thereof. The human-computer interaction device may also include an output device such as a printer.

[0105] The ultrasound imaging system 100 may further include a memory 124 for storing instructions executed by the processor, storing received ultrasound echoes, storing ultrasound images, etc. The memory may be a flash memory card, a solid-state memory, a hard disk, etc. It may be a volatile memory and / or a non-volatile memory, a removable memory and / or a non-removable memory, etc.

[0106] It should be understood that Figure 1 The components included in the ultrasonic imaging system 100 are only exemplary, and the ultrasonic imaging system 100 may include more or fewer components, and the present invention is not limited thereto.

[0107] Next, we will refer to Figure 2 A blood flow richness measurement method according to an embodiment of the present invention is described. The method can be implemented in the above-mentioned ultrasound imaging system 100. Figure 2 It is a schematic flow chart of the blood flow richness measurement method 200 according to an embodiment of the present invention.

[0108] like Figure 2 As shown, a blood flow richness measurement method 200 according to an embodiment of the present invention includes the following steps:

[0109] In step S210, the ultrasonic probe is controlled to transmit a first ultrasonic wave to a target tissue, and an echo of the first ultrasonic wave returned by the target tissue is received to obtain a first echo signal;

[0110] In step S220, signal processing is performed on the first echo signal to obtain blood flow data of a plurality of pixel points corresponding to a target section of the target tissue;

[0111] In step S230, for each pixel to be tested among the multiple pixel points, the number of neighboring pixel points whose blood flow data is greater than a preset threshold is determined according to the blood flow data of multiple neighboring pixel points within a preset range around the pixel to be tested, and the blood flow richness of each pixel to be tested is obtained according to the number;

[0112] In step S240, a blood flow richness image and / or a blood flow richness parameter is generated according to the blood flow richness of each pixel to be measured;

[0113] In step S250, the blood flow richness image and / or the blood flow richness parameter are displayed.

[0114] The blood flow richness measurement method 200 of the embodiment of the present invention obtains the blood flow richness of the pixel to be tested based on the number of neighboring pixels whose blood flow data around the pixel to be tested is greater than a preset threshold, and can objectively reflect the blood flow richness of the target tissue without being affected by sensitivity adjustment.

[0115] Exemplarily, before executing step S210, a tissue structure image of the target tissue is first generated, and a region of interest for blood flow imaging is determined based on the tissue structure image. Figure 1 Taking the ultrasonic imaging system 100 of FIG. 1 as an example, the processor 116 controls the transmitting circuit 112 to send the delayed focused transmitting pulse to the ultrasonic probe 110 through the transmitting / receiving selection switch 120. The ultrasonic probe 110 is stimulated by the transmitting pulse to transmit ultrasonic waves to the target tissue, and receives the ultrasonic echo with tissue information reflected from the target tissue after a certain delay, and reconverts the ultrasonic echo into an electrical signal. The receiving circuit 114 receives the electrical signal converted and generated by the ultrasonic probe 110, obtains the ultrasonic echo signal, and sends the ultrasonic echo signal to the beamforming module 122. The beamforming module 122 performs focusing delay, weighting and channel summing on the ultrasonic echo data, and then sends it to the processor 116. The processor 116 performs signal detection, signal enhancement, data conversion, logarithmic compression and other processing on the ultrasonic echo signal to generate a tissue structure image. The tissue structure image obtained by the processor 116 can be sent to the display 118 for display. The processor 116 can automatically determine the region of interest for blood flow imaging based on the tissue structure image, or the user can manually determine the region of interest for blood flow imaging.

[0116] Next, in the blood flow imaging mode, the processor controls the ultrasonic probe to transmit the first ultrasonic wave to the target tissue, and receives the echo of the first ultrasonic wave returned by the target tissue to obtain the first echo signal; the beamforming module performs corresponding focusing delay, weighting and channel summing on the first ultrasonic echo signal, and then sends the first ultrasonic echo signal to the processor. The processor performs signal processing on the first echo signal to obtain blood flow data of multiple pixel points corresponding to the target section of the target tissue. The multiple pixel points can correspond one-to-one to the multiple pixel points of the region of interest in the tissue structure image.

[0117] Exemplarily, the first echo signal after beam synthesis is first orthogonally demodulated, and the strong tissue echo signal in the signal is filtered out through wall filtering, retaining the echo signal of the blood cells; then, the processor estimates the parameters such as blood flow direction and speed according to the filtered signal to obtain the blood flow data corresponding to each pixel in the multiple pixels.

[0118] In some embodiments, a Doppler color blood flow image or a blood flow energy image of the target section can also be generated based on the blood flow data; the Doppler color blood flow image or the blood flow energy image can be displayed on the same screen as the subsequently generated blood flow richness image / blood flow richness parameter. Among them, the blood flow data obtained in step S220 can be subjected to frame correlation, smoothing and other operations to improve the blood flow morphology, and the base color can be adjusted according to the direction and speed of the blood flow to obtain a traditional Doppler color blood flow image. Generally speaking, a Doppler color blood flow image is defined as blood flow toward the ultrasound probe being biased toward red, and blood flow away from the ultrasound probe being biased toward blue. The blood flow energy image is an image generated based on the Doppler energy spectrum integral as the imaging basis, which mainly depends on the red blood cell density in the blood vessels, and has the advantages of high sensitivity to low-speed blood flow, low angle dependence and no aliasing.

[0119] Next, in step S230, for each pixel to be tested among the multiple pixels, the number of neighboring pixels whose blood flow data is greater than a preset threshold is determined based on the blood flow data of multiple neighboring pixels within a preset range around the pixel to be tested, and the blood flow richness of each pixel to be tested is obtained based on the number, and the blood flow richness reflects the blood flow richness of the target tissue. The pixel to be tested can be any pixel among the multiple pixels. In this step, the blood flow richness of all the pixels among the multiple pixels can be determined, and the blood flow richness of some of the pixels can also be determined.

[0120] Exemplarily, the ratio of the number of neighboring pixels whose blood flow data is greater than a preset threshold to the total number of multiple neighboring pixels can be used as the blood flow richness of the pixel to be tested. Alternatively, the number of neighboring pixels whose blood flow data is greater than the preset threshold can be directly used as the blood flow richness of the pixel to be tested. The blood flow data of the neighboring pixels can be directly compared with the preset threshold to determine the number of neighboring pixels whose blood flow data is greater than the preset threshold, or the pixel value obtained based on the blood flow data can be compared with the preset threshold to determine the number of neighboring pixels whose blood flow data is greater than the preset threshold. The blood flow richness presented in the conventional Doppler color blood flow image is affected by the sensitivity adjustment or the blood flow gain adjustment. When the sensitivity is high, the blood flow richness is higher, and when the sensitivity is low, the blood flow richness is lower. The embodiment of the present invention obtains the blood flow richness of the pixel to be tested in a statistical form according to the number of neighboring pixels whose blood flow data is greater than the preset threshold, which can be unaffected by the blood flow gain adjustment and relatively objectively reflect the blood flow richness at various positions of the target tissue. Figure 4 A comparison diagram of a conventional Doppler color blood flow image and a blood flow richness image according to an embodiment of the present invention is shown.

[0121] When obtaining neighboring pixels of the pixel to be tested, the number of neighboring pixels can be any suitable number, and the shape of the pixel array formed by the pixel to be tested and the neighboring pixels can be any shape, such as circle, rectangle, square, triangle, etc. In one example, Figure 5 As shown, assuming that the pixel point located at the center of the pixel array is the pixel point to be tested, when calculating the blood flow richness of the pixel point to be tested, a 5*5 pixel array centered on the pixel point to be tested is taken for calculation, and the 24 pixels located around the pixel point to be tested in the pixel array are the neighboring pixels of the pixel point to be tested. The total area of ​​the pixel array is B (B=25), and it is determined that there are a total of A neighboring pixels whose blood flow data in the entire pixel array is greater than the preset threshold, then the blood flow richness of the pixel point to be tested is A / B. The blood flow richness of each pixel point in the multiple pixels is calculated according to the above method, and the blood flow richness of the multiple pixels can be obtained.

[0122] In step S240, a blood flow richness image and / or blood flow richness parameters are generated according to the blood flow richness of each pixel to be tested. Specifically, the blood flow richness of each pixel to be tested can be mapped to a corresponding pixel value to generate a grayscale image or a color image, i.e., a blood flow richness image. The blood flow richness parameters can be obtained directly based on the blood flow richness of multiple pixels to be tested, or can be obtained based on the blood flow richness image. Exemplarily, the blood flow richness parameters include the statistical value of the blood flow richness of multiple pixels, the percentage of the number of pixels whose blood flow richness is greater than the preset blood flow richness to the total number of pixels, the area of ​​the region whose blood flow richness is greater than the preset blood flow richness, etc.

[0123] During routine examinations, doctors will use shear wave elastography to check the elasticity of the lesion area in addition to using blood flow imaging to check the blood flow richness of the lesion area. Shear wave elastography refers to the use of an ultrasound probe to excite a focused ultrasound beam, form an acoustic radiation force, form a shear wave source in the tissue, and generate transversely propagating shear waves. By identifying and detecting the shear waves and their propagation parameters generated inside the tissue and imaging these parameters, the hardness difference of the tissue can be quantitatively and visually obtained. Therefore, a shear wave elastic image of the target section can also be generated, and the shear wave elastic image can be displayed on the same screen with the blood flow richness image and / or blood flow richness parameters, so that the user can view the blood flow richness and elasticity distribution status of the target tissue at the same time, thereby improving the accuracy of diagnosis.

[0124] Due to the sequential nature of the examinations, it is usually difficult to ensure that the imaging section of blood flow imaging and the imaging section of shear wave elastography are the same section, and therefore it is difficult to evaluate the shear wave elastography results and blood flow results of the same section to obtain more consistent diagnostic information.

[0125] In order to ensure that the shear wave elasticity image and the blood flow image correspond to the same target section, in one embodiment, the ultrasound probe can be controlled to alternately transmit the first ultrasonic wave and the second ultrasonic wave to the target tissue, wherein the first ultrasonic wave is used to obtain blood flow data, and the second ultrasonic wave is used to track the shear wave propagating in the target tissue; the echo of the second ultrasonic wave returned by the target tissue is received to obtain a second echo signal; and the shear wave elasticity image of the target section is generated in real time according to the second echo signal. Since the first ultrasonic wave and the second ultrasonic wave are transmitted alternately, the elasticity data and the blood flow data can be obtained synchronously, thereby ensuring that the shear wave elasticity image and the blood flow richness image or the blood flow richness parameter correspond to the same target section.

[0126] Since the user usually needs to observe the tissue structure image during the ultrasound examination, the tissue structure image of the target section can also be obtained and displayed on the same screen with the shear wave elasticity image and the blood flow richness image and / or the blood flow richness parameter. Figure 5 As shown, the ultrasonic probe is controlled to transmit the first ultrasonic wave, the second ultrasonic wave and the third ultrasonic wave alternately to the target tissue; the echo of the third ultrasonic wave returned by the target tissue is received to obtain the third echo signal; and the tissue structure image of the target section is generated in real time according to the third echo signal. There is no restriction on the emission order of the first ultrasonic wave, the second ultrasonic wave and the third ultrasonic wave. Since the first ultrasonic wave, the second ultrasonic wave and the third ultrasonic wave are emitted alternately, the tissue structure data, the elasticity data and the blood flow data can be obtained synchronously, thereby ensuring that the tissue structure image, the shear wave elasticity image and the blood flow richness image or the blood flow richness parameter correspond to the same target section.

[0127] In another embodiment, in addition to real-time synchronous generation of shear wave elasticity images and blood flow richness images / blood flow richness parameters, it is also possible to ensure that the shear wave elasticity images and blood flow richness images / blood flow richness parameters correspond to the same target section by section matching.

[0128] Specifically, in one example, a shear wave elasticity image is generated in advance before obtaining blood flow data, and at the same time, a first tissue structure image of the target section corresponding to the shear wave elasticity image is also acquired in advance. For example, the position of the ultrasound probe can be kept unchanged, and the shear wave elasticity image and the first tissue structure image can be generated in sequence. In the process of blood flow imaging, a real-time tissue structure image of the target tissue is generated in real time, and a second tissue structure image of the target section is determined in the real-time tissue structure image according to the matching degree between the real-time tissue structure image and the first tissue structure image, that is, when the real-time tissue structure image matches the first tissue structure image, it indicates that the section currently scanned is the target section. At this time, the ultrasound probe is controlled to emit the first ultrasonic wave at the position corresponding to the second tissue structure image, and the blood flow data of the target section can be obtained. Since the second tissue structure image reflects the tissue structure of the target section, the second tissue structure image can be displayed on the same screen with the blood flow richness image / blood flow richness parameter for user reference.

[0129] The similarity between the real-time tissue structure image and the first tissue structure image can be calculated, and the calculated similarity can be displayed, and the matching degree between the real-time tissue structure image and the first tissue structure image can be reflected by the similarity. Specifically, the image features of the real-time tissue structure image and the first tissue structure image are extracted, and the similarity is calculated according to the distance between the image features. The traditional feature extraction algorithm can be used to extract image features such as gradient features, Haar feature extraction, and texture features, and a deep neural network can also be used for feature extraction.

[0130] Optionally, a machine learning model may be used to determine the similarity between the real-time tissue structure image and the first tissue structure image. The machine learning model may be a trained deep learning neural network model, which may be trained to directly output the similarity between two frames of ultrasound images.

[0131] Exemplarily, when calculating the similarity, the similarity of the whole image can be calculated, or the similarity between the real-time tissue structure image and the target area in the first tissue structure image can be calculated. For example, after extracting the image features, the extracted features are classified using a support vector machine, a random forest, a neural network or other classifier to segment the target area, and the image features of the target area are compared to obtain the similarity between the two target areas. Alternatively, a trained machine learning model can be used to directly output the similarity between the real-time tissue structure image and the target area contained in the first tissue structure image.

[0132] Exemplarily, in addition to automatically calculating and displaying the similarity between the real-time tissue structure image and the first tissue structure image, the real-time tissue structure image and the first tissue structure image can also be displayed on the same screen, so that the user can determine the matching degree between the real-time tissue structure image and the first tissue structure image by observing the two frames of images. Displaying the real-time tissue structure image and the first tissue structure image on the same screen can include displaying the real-time tissue structure image and the first tissue structure image side by side, or superimposing them on each other, and displaying the superimposed image on the upper layer as having a certain degree of transparency, so that the user can determine the matching degree between the real-time tissue structure image and the first tissue structure image by observing the degree of overlap between the two.

[0133] In another example, a shear wave elasticity image is generated after obtaining blood flow data. Specifically, while obtaining blood flow data, a third tissue structure image of the target section corresponding to the blood flow data is also obtained; thereafter, a real-time tissue structure image of the target tissue is generated in real time, and a fourth tissue structure image of the target section is determined in the real-time tissue structure image according to the degree of matching between the real-time tissue structure image and the third tissue structure image; the ultrasound probe is controlled to emit a second ultrasonic wave to the target tissue at a position corresponding to the third tissue structure image to track the shear wave propagating in the target tissue; the echo of the second ultrasonic wave returned by the target tissue is received to obtain a second echo signal; and the shear wave elasticity image of the target section is generated in real time according to the second echo signal.

[0134] Since the fourth tissue structure image is a tissue structure image of the target section, the fourth tissue structure image can also be displayed on the same screen with the shear wave elasticity image, the blood flow richness image and / or the blood flow richness parameter.

[0135] In addition to obtaining the shear wave elastic image of the target section by alternately emitting ultrasound or by section matching, the ultrasound probe can also be controlled to alternately emit the second ultrasound and the third ultrasound to the target tissue at the position corresponding to the blood flow data before or after obtaining the blood flow data, receive the echo of the second ultrasound returned by the target tissue to obtain the second echo signal, and receive the echo of the third ultrasound returned by the target tissue to obtain the third echo signal; generate the shear wave elastic image of the target section according to the second echo signal, and generate the tissue structure image of the target section according to the third echo signal. That is, the user keeps the ultrasound probe still during the imaging process, and generates a single-frame blood flow richness image and / or blood flow richness parameter, shear wave elasticity image and tissue structure image in sequence.

[0136] After obtaining the shear wave elasticity image and blood flow richness image of the target section by any of the above methods, the shear wave elasticity image and the blood flow richness image are displayed on the same screen. The blood flow richness image can be superimposed on the shear wave elasticity image, or the blood flow richness image and the shear wave elasticity image are displayed independently. When the tissue structure image of the target section is also generated during the imaging process, the tissue structure image, the shear wave elasticity image and the blood flow richness image are displayed on the same screen. The blood flow richness image can be superimposed on the tissue structure image or the shear wave elasticity image, or the blood flow richness image, the tissue structure image and the shear wave elasticity image are displayed independently.

[0137] Since shear wave elasticity cannot propagate in liquids, and excessive blood flow richness in the lesion area may also affect the results of shear wave elasticity and affect the user's judgment of the elasticity of the lesion. Therefore, based on the blood flow richness of each pixel to be tested, the first area with blood flow richness higher than the preset standard can be determined, and based on the correspondence between the blood flow data and the shear wave elasticity image, the second area corresponding to the first area in the shear wave elasticity image can be determined; when displaying the shear wave elasticity image, the second area is marked to prompt the user that the elastic imaging result of the second area may be inaccurate to avoid affecting the doctor's judgment of the lesion.

[0138] In summary, the blood flow richness measurement method 200 of the embodiment of the present invention obtains the blood flow richness of the pixel to be tested based on the number of neighboring pixels whose blood flow data around the pixel to be tested is greater than a preset threshold, and can objectively reflect the blood flow richness of the target tissue without being affected by sensitivity adjustment.

[0139] Next, we will refer to Figure 6 An ultrasonic imaging method according to another embodiment of the present invention is described. The method can also be implemented in the ultrasonic imaging system 100 described above. Figure 6 is a schematic flow chart of an ultrasonic imaging method 600 according to an embodiment of the present invention.

[0140] like Figure 6 As shown, an ultrasonic imaging method 600 according to an embodiment of the present invention includes the following steps:

[0141] In step S610, the ultrasonic probe is controlled to transmit a first ultrasonic wave to a target section of a target tissue, and an echo of the first ultrasonic wave returned by the target tissue is received to obtain a first echo signal;

[0142] In step S620, the ultrasonic probe is controlled to transmit a second ultrasonic wave to the target section of the target tissue to track the shear wave propagating in the target tissue, and an echo of the second ultrasonic wave is received to obtain a second echo signal;

[0143] In step S630, the ultrasonic probe is controlled to transmit a third ultrasonic wave to the target section of the target tissue, and an echo of the third ultrasonic wave is received to obtain a third echo signal;

[0144] In step S640, a blood flow image of the target section is generated according to the first echo signal;

[0145] In step S650, a shear wave elastic image of the target section is generated according to the second echo signal;

[0146] In step S660, a first tissue structure image of the target section is generated according to the third echo signal;

[0147] In step S670, the blood flow image, the shear wave elasticity image and the first tissue structure image are displayed on the same screen.

[0148] During routine examinations, doctors will observe the blood flow image of the lesion area to check the blood flow status, and will observe the shear wave elastic image of the lesion area to check the elastic distribution status of the lesion area. The embodiment of the present invention simultaneously generates a shear wave elastic image, a blood flow image, and a tissue structure image of the target section, so that the user can simultaneously view the blood flow status, elastic distribution status, and tissue structure of the target tissue, thereby improving the accuracy of diagnosis. The blood flow image of the embodiment of the present invention can be a blood flow richness image, a Doppler color blood flow image, or a blood flow energy image.

[0149] Among them, in order to ensure that the shear wave elasticity image, the blood flow image and the first tissue structure image correspond to the same target section, one implementation method is to alternately transmit the first ultrasonic wave, the second ultrasonic wave and the third ultrasonic wave to synchronously generate the blood flow image, the shear wave elasticity image and the first tissue structure image. The alternating transmission can include sequentially transmitting one or more first ultrasonic waves, one or more second ultrasonic waves and one or more third ultrasonic waves, and the order of the first ultrasonic wave, the second ultrasonic wave and the third ultrasonic wave is not limited.

[0150] Another way to ensure the consistency of sections is through image matching. In one example, a shear wave elastic image is generated in advance before the first ultrasonic wave is emitted, and a second tissue structure image of the target section corresponding to the shear wave elastic image is also acquired in advance; during the blood flow imaging process, a real-time tissue structure image of the target tissue is generated in real time, the real-time tissue structure image is matched with the second tissue structure image, and the first tissue structure image of the target section is determined in the real-time tissue structure image; then, the ultrasonic probe is controlled to emit the first ultrasonic wave at the position corresponding to the first tissue structure image to generate a blood flow image of the target section. Since the first tissue structure image corresponds to the target section, the blood flow image acquired at the position corresponding to the first tissue structure image also corresponds to the target section.

[0151] Among them, the similarity between the real-time tissue structure image and the second tissue structure image can be calculated, and the calculated similarity is displayed, and the matching degree between the real-time tissue structure image and the second tissue structure image is reflected by the similarity. Specifically, the image features of the real-time tissue structure image and the second tissue structure image are extracted, and the similarity is calculated according to the distance between the image features. Among them, the traditional feature extraction algorithm can be used to extract image features such as gradient features, Haar feature extraction, and texture features, and a deep neural network can also be used for feature extraction. Optionally, a machine learning model can also be used to determine the similarity between the real-time tissue structure image and the second tissue structure image. The machine learning model can be a trained deep learning neural network model, which can be trained to directly output the similarity between two frames of ultrasound images. When calculating the similarity, the similarity of the entire image can be calculated, and the similarity between the target area in the real-time tissue structure image and the second tissue structure image can also be calculated.

[0152] Exemplarily, in addition to automatically calculating and displaying the similarity between the real-time tissue structure image and the second tissue structure image, the real-time tissue structure image and the second tissue structure image can also be displayed on the same screen, so that the user can determine the matching degree between the real-time tissue structure image and the second tissue structure image by observing the two frames of images. Displaying the real-time tissue structure image and the second tissue structure image on the same screen can include displaying the real-time tissue structure image and the second tissue structure image side by side, or superimposing them on each other, and displaying the superimposed image on the upper layer as having a certain degree of transparency, so that the user can determine the matching degree between the real-time tissue structure image and the second tissue structure image by observing the degree of overlap between the two.

[0153] In another implementation, the blood flow image is generated in advance before the second ultrasonic wave is emitted, and a third tissue structure image of the target section corresponding to the blood flow image is also acquired; during the shear wave elastic imaging, a real-time tissue structure image of the target tissue is generated in real time, the real-time tissue structure image is matched with the third tissue structure image, and the first tissue structure image of the target section is determined in the real-time tissue structure image; the ultrasonic probe is controlled to emit the second ultrasonic wave at a position corresponding to the first tissue structure image to generate the shear wave elastic image of the target section. Since the first tissue structure image corresponds to the target section, the shear wave elastic image acquired at the position corresponding to the first tissue structure image also corresponds to the target section.

[0154] After obtaining the first tissue structure image, shear wave elasticity image and blood flow image of the target section, the first tissue structure image, shear wave elasticity image and blood flow image are displayed on the same screen. Figure 7As shown, the first tissue structure image, the shear wave elasticity image and the blood flow image can be displayed in a four-window manner, in which the upper left and lower left are tissue structure images, the upper right is a blood flow image, and the lower right is a shear wave elasticity image, that is, the shear wave elasticity image and the blood flow image are displayed independently. In another embodiment, as Figure 8 As shown, the first tissue structure image, the shear wave elasticity image and the blood flow image can be displayed in a dual-window manner, with the left side of the figure showing the tissue structure image and the right side showing the superimposed shear wave elasticity image and blood flow image.

[0155] In summary, the blood flow richness measurement method 600 of the embodiment of the present invention can display the blood flow image, shear wave elasticity image and tissue structure image of the same target section on the same screen, so that the user can conduct a comprehensive analysis of the three to obtain a more accurate diagnosis result.

[0156] The embodiment of the present invention further provides an ultrasonic imaging system, which is used to implement the above-mentioned blood flow richness measurement method 200 or ultrasonic imaging method 600. Figure 1 The ultrasound imaging system 100 includes an ultrasound probe 110, a transmitting circuit 112, a receiving circuit 114, a processor 116 and a display 118. Optionally, the ultrasound imaging system 100 may also include a transmit / receive selection switch 120, a beamforming module 122 and a memory 124. The transmitting circuit 112 and the receiving circuit 114 may be connected to the ultrasound probe 110 via the transmit / receive selection switch 120.

[0157] Among them, the transmitting circuit 112 is used to stimulate the ultrasonic probe 110 to transmit ultrasonic waves to the target tissue; the receiving circuit 114 is used to control the ultrasonic probe 110 to receive the ultrasonic echo and obtain the ultrasonic echo signal; the processor 116 is used to execute the steps of the blood flow richness measurement method 200 or the ultrasonic imaging method 600 to obtain an ultrasonic image; the display 118 is used to display the ultrasonic image obtained by the processor 116.

[0158] The above only describes the main functions of the components of the ultrasound imaging system 100. The specific structures and functions thereof can be found above and will not be described in detail here.

[0159] Although example embodiments have been described herein with reference to the accompanying drawings, it should be understood that the above example embodiments are merely exemplary and are not intended to limit the scope of the present invention thereto. Various changes and modifications may be made therein by one of ordinary skill in the art without departing from the scope and spirit of the present invention. All such changes and modifications are intended to be included within the scope of the present invention as required by the appended claims.

[0160] Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the units and algorithm steps of each example described in conjunction with the embodiments disclosed herein can be implemented in electronic hardware, or a combination of computer software and electronic hardware. Whether these functions are performed in hardware or software depends on the specific application and design constraints of the technical solution. Professional and technical personnel can use different methods to implement the described functions for each specific application, but such implementation should not be considered to be beyond the scope of the present invention.

[0161] In the several embodiments provided by the present invention, it should be understood that the disclosed devices and methods can be implemented in other ways. For example, the device embodiments described above are only schematic, for example, the division of the units is only a logical function division, and there may be other division methods in actual implementation, such as multiple units or components can be combined or integrated into another device, or some features can be ignored or not executed.

[0162] In the description provided herein, a large number of specific details are described. However, it is understood that embodiments of the present invention can be practiced without these specific details. In some instances, well-known methods, structures and techniques are not shown in detail so as not to obscure the understanding of this description.

[0163] Similarly, it should be understood that in order to streamline the present invention and help understand one or more of the various inventive aspects, in the description of the exemplary embodiments of the present invention, the various features of the present invention are sometimes grouped together into a single embodiment, figure, or description thereof. However, the method of the present invention should not be interpreted as reflecting the following intention: the claimed invention requires more features than the features explicitly stated in each claim. More specifically, as reflected in the corresponding claims, the inventive point is that the corresponding technical problem can be solved with less than all the features of a single disclosed embodiment. Therefore, the claims following the specific embodiment are hereby expressly incorporated into the specific embodiment, wherein each claim itself serves as a separate embodiment of the present invention.

[0164] It will be understood by those skilled in the art that, except for mutually exclusive features, all features disclosed in this specification (including the accompanying claims, abstracts and drawings) and all processes or units of any method or device disclosed in this specification may be combined in any combination. Unless otherwise expressly stated, each feature disclosed in this specification (including the accompanying claims, abstracts and drawings) may be replaced by an alternative feature that provides the same, equivalent or similar purpose.

[0165] In addition, those skilled in the art will appreciate that, although some embodiments described herein include certain features included in other embodiments but not other features, the combination of features of different embodiments is meant to be within the scope of the present invention and form different embodiments. For example, in the claims, any one of the claimed embodiments may be used in any combination.

[0166] The various component embodiments of the present invention can be implemented in hardware, or in software modules running on one or more processors, or in a combination thereof. It should be understood by those skilled in the art that a microprocessor or digital signal processor (DSP) can be used in practice to implement some or all of the functions of some modules according to embodiments of the present invention. The present invention can also be implemented as a device program (e.g., a computer program and a computer program product) for executing part or all of the methods described herein. Such a program implementing the present invention can be stored on a computer-readable medium, or can have the form of one or more signals. Such a signal can be downloaded from an Internet website, or provided on a carrier signal, or provided in any other form.

[0167] It should be noted that the above embodiments illustrate rather than limit the invention, and that those skilled in the art may devise alternative embodiments without departing from the scope of the appended claims. In the claims, any reference symbol between brackets shall not be construed as a limitation on the claims. The invention may be implemented by means of hardware comprising a number of different elements and by means of a suitably programmed computer. In a unit claim enumerating a number of means, several of these means may be embodied by the same hardware item. The use of the words first, second, and third, etc., does not indicate any order. These words may be interpreted as names.

[0168] The above is only a specific embodiment of the present invention or an explanation of a specific embodiment, and the protection scope of the present invention is not limited thereto. Any person skilled in the art can easily think of changes or substitutions within the technical scope disclosed by the present invention, which should be included in the protection scope of the present invention. The protection scope of the present invention shall be based on the protection scope of the claims.

Claims

1. A method for measuring blood flow richness, characterized in that: The method comprises: Controlling the ultrasonic probe to transmit a first ultrasonic wave to a target tissue, and receiving an echo of the first ultrasonic wave returned by the target tissue to obtain a first echo signal; performing signal processing on the first echo signal to obtain blood flow data of a plurality of pixel points corresponding to a target section of the target tissue; For each pixel to be tested among the multiple pixel points, determine the number of neighboring pixel points whose blood flow data is greater than a preset threshold value according to the blood flow data of multiple neighboring pixel points within a preset range around the pixel to be tested, and obtain the blood flow richness of each pixel to be tested according to the number; Generate a blood flow richness image and / or a blood flow richness parameter according to the blood flow richness of each pixel to be measured; The blood flow richness image and / or the blood flow richness parameter are displayed.

2. The method for measuring blood flow richness according to claim 1, characterized in that: The obtaining the blood flow richness of the pixel to be measured according to the number includes: The ratio of the number to the total number of the plurality of adjacent pixel points is used as the blood flow richness of the pixel point to be tested.

3. The method for measuring blood flow richness according to claim 1, characterized in that: Also includes: generating a shear wave elastic image of the target section; The shear wave elasticity image and the blood flow richness image and / or the blood flow richness parameter are displayed on the same screen.

4. The method for measuring blood flow richness according to claim 3, characterized in that: Also includes: Determine, according to the blood flow richness of each pixel to be measured, a first region whose blood flow richness is higher than a preset standard, and determine, according to the correspondence between the blood flow data and the shear wave elasticity image, a second region in the shear wave elasticity image corresponding to the first region; When displaying the shear wave elasticity image, the second region is marked.

5. The method for measuring blood flow richness according to claim 3, characterized in that: The generating of the shear wave elastic image of the target section includes: controlling the ultrasonic probe to transmit a second ultrasonic wave to the target tissue to track the shear wave propagating in the target tissue; receiving the echo of the second ultrasonic wave returned by the target tissue to obtain a second echo signal; generating a shear wave elastic image of the target section in real time according to the second echo signal; The first ultrasonic wave and the second ultrasonic wave are emitted alternately to synchronously obtain the elasticity data and the blood flow data.

6. The method for measuring blood flow richness according to claim 5, characterized in that: Also includes: controlling the ultrasonic probe to transmit a third ultrasonic wave toward the target tissue; receiving the echo of the third ultrasonic wave returned by the target tissue to obtain a third echo signal; Generating a tissue structure image of the target section in real time according to the third echo signal, and displaying the tissue structure image, the shear wave elasticity image, the blood flow richness image and / or the blood flow richness parameter on the same screen; The first ultrasonic wave, the second ultrasonic wave and the third ultrasonic wave are emitted alternately to synchronously obtain the tissue structure data, the elasticity data and the blood flow data.

7. The method for measuring blood flow richness according to claim 3, characterized in that: The shear wave elasticity image is generated in advance before obtaining the blood flow data, and the method further includes: Acquire a first tissue structure image of the target section corresponding to the shear wave elasticity image; Generating a real-time tissue structure image of the target tissue in real time, and determining a second tissue structure image of the target section in the real-time tissue structure image according to a matching degree between the real-time tissue structure image and the first tissue structure image; The controlling the ultrasonic probe to transmit the first ultrasonic wave to the target tissue includes: controlling the ultrasonic probe to transmit the first ultrasonic wave at a position corresponding to the second tissue structure image to obtain the blood flow data of the target section.

8. The method for measuring blood flow richness according to claim 7, characterized in that: The method also includes displaying the second tissue structure image and the blood flow richness image and / or the blood flow richness parameter on the same screen.

9. The method for measuring blood flow richness according to claim 3, characterized in that: The generating of the shear wave elastic image of the target section includes: Acquire a third tissue structure image of the target section corresponding to the blood flow data; Generating a real-time tissue structure image of the target tissue in real time, and determining a fourth tissue structure image of the target section in the real-time tissue structure image according to a matching degree between the real-time tissue structure image and the third tissue structure image; Controlling the ultrasound probe to transmit a second ultrasonic wave to the target tissue at a position corresponding to the third tissue structure image to track the shear wave propagating in the target tissue; receiving the echo of the second ultrasonic wave returned by the target tissue to obtain a second echo signal; The shear wave elasticity image of the target section is generated in real time according to the second echo signal.

10. The method for measuring blood flow richness according to claim 9, characterized in that: The method also includes displaying the fourth tissue structure image and the blood flow richness image and / or the blood flow richness parameter on the same screen.

11. The method for measuring blood flow richness according to claim 4, characterized in that: The method further comprises generating a tissue structure image of the target section, and displaying the shear wave elasticity image, the tissue structure image, the blood flow richness image and / or the blood flow richness parameter on the same screen; Generating the shear wave elasticity image and the tissue structure image of the target section includes: Before or after obtaining the blood flow data, controlling the ultrasound probe to alternately transmit a second ultrasonic wave and a third ultrasonic wave to the target tissue at a position corresponding to the blood flow data, wherein the second ultrasonic wave is used to track the shear wave propagating in the target tissue; receiving the echo of the second ultrasonic wave returned by the target tissue to obtain a second echo signal, and receiving the echo of the third ultrasonic wave returned by the target tissue to obtain a third echo signal; A shear wave elasticity image of the target section is generated according to the second echo signal, and a tissue structure image of the target section is generated according to the third echo signal.

12. The method for measuring blood flow richness according to claim 3, characterized in that: Displaying the shear wave elasticity image and the blood flow richness image on the same screen comprises: The blood flow richness image is superimposed on the shear wave elasticity image and displayed, or the blood flow richness image and the shear wave elasticity image are displayed independently.

13. The method for measuring blood flow richness according to claim 3, characterized in that: It also includes generating a tissue structure image of the target section, and displaying the tissue structure image, the shear wave elasticity image and the blood flow richness image on the same screen; The blood flow richness image is superimposed and displayed on the tissue structure image or the shear wave elasticity image, or the blood flow richness image, the tissue structure image and the shear wave elasticity image are displayed independently.

14. The method for measuring blood flow richness according to claim 1, characterized in that: Also includes: Generate a Doppler color blood flow image or a blood flow energy image of the target section according to the blood flow data; The Doppler color blood flow image or the blood flow energy image is displayed on the same screen as the blood flow richness image and / or the blood flow richness parameter.

15. An ultrasonic imaging method, characterized in that: The method comprises: Controlling the ultrasonic probe to transmit a first ultrasonic wave to a target section of a target tissue, and receiving an echo of the first ultrasonic wave returned by the target tissue to obtain a first echo signal; Controlling the ultrasonic probe to transmit a second ultrasonic wave to the target section of the target tissue to track the shear wave propagating in the target tissue, and receiving an echo of the second ultrasonic wave to obtain a second echo signal; Controlling the ultrasonic probe to transmit a third ultrasonic wave toward the target section of the target tissue, and receiving an echo of the third ultrasonic wave to obtain a third echo signal; generating a blood flow image of the target section according to the first echo signal; generating a shear wave elastic image of the target section according to the second echo signal; generating a first tissue structure image of the target section according to the third echo signal; The blood flow image, the shear wave elasticity image and the first tissue structure image are displayed on the same screen.

16. The ultrasonic imaging method according to claim 15, characterized in that: The first ultrasonic wave, the second ultrasonic wave and the third ultrasonic wave are transmitted alternately to synchronously generate the blood flow image, the shear wave elasticity image and the first tissue structure image.

17. The ultrasonic imaging method according to claim 15, characterized in that: The shear wave elasticity image is generated in advance before the first ultrasonic wave is emitted, and the method further includes: Acquire a second tissue structure image of the target section corresponding to the shear wave elasticity image; Generating a real-time tissue structure image of the target tissue in real time, matching the real-time tissue structure image with the second tissue structure image, and determining the first tissue structure image of the target section in the real-time tissue structure image; The controlling the ultrasonic probe to transmit the first ultrasonic wave to the target section of the target tissue includes: controlling the ultrasonic probe to transmit the first ultrasonic wave at a position corresponding to the first tissue structure image to generate the blood flow image of the target section.

18. The ultrasonic imaging method according to claim 15, characterized in that: The blood flow image is generated in advance before the second ultrasonic wave is emitted, and the method further includes: Acquire a third tissue structure image of the target section corresponding to the blood flow image; Generating a real-time tissue structure image of the target tissue in real time, matching the real-time tissue structure image with the third tissue structure image, and determining the first tissue structure image of the target section in the real-time tissue structure image; The controlling the ultrasonic probe to transmit the second ultrasonic wave to the target section of the target tissue includes: controlling the ultrasonic probe to transmit the second ultrasonic wave at a position corresponding to the first tissue structure image to generate the shear wave elasticity image of the target section.

19. An ultrasonic imaging system, characterized in that: include: Ultrasound probe; A transmitting circuit, used for stimulating the ultrasonic probe to transmit ultrasonic waves to the target tissue; A receiving circuit, used for controlling the ultrasonic probe to receive the ultrasonic echo to obtain the ultrasonic echo signal; A processor, configured to generate an ultrasonic image of the target tissue according to the echo signal, wherein the processor is further configured to execute the steps of the blood flow richness measurement method according to any one of claims 1 to 14; A display is used to display the ultrasound image.

20. An ultrasonic imaging system, characterized in that: include: Ultrasound probe; A transmitting circuit, used for stimulating the ultrasonic probe to transmit ultrasonic waves to the target tissue; A receiving circuit, used for controlling the ultrasonic probe to receive the ultrasonic echo to obtain the ultrasonic echo signal; a processor, configured to generate an ultrasonic image of the target tissue according to the echo signal, the processor being further configured to execute the steps of the ultrasonic imaging method according to any one of claims 15 to 18; A display is used to display the ultrasound image.

Images