Blood vessel imaging method, system and device based on ultrasonic positioning and storage medium

Abstract

The embodiment of the invention provides an angiography method, system and device based on ultrasonic positioning and a storage medium, and belongs to the technical field of ultrasonic medical detection. Firstly, an ultrasonic probe is adopted to scan a current area to obtain ultrasonic data, a Doppler imaging technology is adopted to process the ultrasonic data to obtain a Doppler blood vessel image of the current area, then whether the current area is a target area or not is rapidly judged according to the Doppler blood vessel image, and after the target area is rapidly determined, the target area is determined. And performing microbubble contrast operation on the blood vessel of the target area, and scanning the target area after the microbubble contrast operation by adopting an ultrasonic positioning microscope technology, so as to obtain a high-precision blood vessel image of the target area. The target area is rapidly positioned through the Doppler imaging technology, then the blood vessel image is collected in the target area through the ultrasonic positioning microscope technology based on microbubble radiography, the efficiency of the blood vessel image collection process of the target area is improved, and meanwhile the blood vessel image precision is improved.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] This application relates to the technical field of ultrasonic medical detection, and particularly to a vascular imaging method, system, device and storage medium based on ultrasonic positioning. Background Art

[0002] The ultrasonic positioning technology in medical imaging is a technology that realizes the positioning and imaging of internal tissues or lesion sites based on the propagation and reflection principles of ultrasonic waves. Its basic principle is to calculate the distance by using the propagation speed of ultrasonic waves in air or media, and calculate the distance between the transmitter and the object by measuring the time difference between the transmitted signal and the received signal, so as to realize the imaging of internal tissues. For vascular imaging, the ultrasonic localization microscopy technology based on microbubbles is often used. This technology combines microbubble contrast agents and ultrasonic imaging technologies to improve the contrast of vascular imaging and the accuracy of positioning. In ultrasonic imaging, microbubbles have a strong reflection ability to ultrasonic waves, so the contrast of the image can be enhanced. Microbubbles, as a kind of microvesicles, can be injected into blood vessels as contrast agents, and then the ultrasonic imaging technology is used to capture the microbubble reflection images at multiple time points, and the time series images are superimposed to obtain a super-high-resolution image of the vascular network in the target area. In order to obtain high-resolution images, a low concentration of microbubbles is often used. Therefore, in order to record the superimposed images of microbubbles filling the blood vessels in the target area, a long acquisition time is required. Due to the long imaging time of the ultrasonic localization microscopy technology, the overall process efficiency of collecting the vascular images in the target area is low. Summary of the Invention

[0003] The main purpose of the embodiments of this application is to propose a vascular imaging method, system, device and storage medium based on ultrasonic positioning, aiming to improve the acquisition efficiency of high-precision vascular images in the target area.

[0004] To achieve the above purpose, on the one hand, an embodiment of this application proposes a vascular imaging method based on ultrasonic positioning, including the following steps:

[0005] Use an ultrasonic probe to scan the current area to obtain ultrasonic data, and use Doppler imaging technology to process the ultrasonic data to obtain a Doppler vascular image of the current area;

[0006] Judge whether the current area is the target area according to the Doppler vascular image;

[0007] When the current area is the target area, perform microbubble contrast operation on the blood vessels in the target area;

[0008] Use the ultrasonic localization microscopy technology to scan the target area after the microbubble contrast operation to obtain a vascular image of the target area.

[0009] In some embodiments, processing the ultrasound data using Doppler imaging technology to obtain a Doppler vascular image of the current region includes the following steps:

[0010] Performing image reconstruction on each frame of echo data in the ultrasound data using the delay-and-sum method to obtain each frame of a first ultrasound image, wherein each frame of the echo data includes multi-angle echo signals;

[0011] Constructing a data matrix based on each frame of the first ultrasound image and performing singular value decomposition on the data matrix to obtain a first decomposition feature and a second decomposition feature, wherein the correlation of the first decomposition feature is greater than that of the second decomposition feature;

[0012] Reconstructing a matrix based on the second decomposition feature and performing image conversion based on the reconstructed data matrix to obtain a Doppler blood cell image of each frame of the first ultrasound image;

[0013] Determining the Doppler vascular image of the current region based on the Doppler blood cell images of all frames.

[0014] In some embodiments, determining whether the current region is a target region based on the Doppler vascular image includes the following steps:

[0015] Displaying the Doppler vascular image of the current region on a visual interaction interface;

[0016] When a confirmation operation instruction is received, determining that the current region is a target region.

[0017] In some embodiments, the vascular imaging method based on ultrasound positioning further includes the following steps:

[0018] When the current region is not a target region, moving the ultrasound probe to the next region along a preset path and taking the next region as the current region, and repeatedly executing the steps of scanning the current region with the ultrasound probe to obtain ultrasound data to determining whether the current region is a target region based on the Doppler vascular image.

[0019] In some embodiments, scanning the target region after microbubble contrast operation using ultrasound localization microscopy technology to obtain a target region vascular image includes the following steps:

[0020] Performing an ultrasound scan on the target region after microbubble contrast operation to obtain a second ultrasound image;

[0021] Identifying the positions of microbubbles in the second ultrasound image according to the point spread function;

[0022] Performing ultrasound scan tracking on the positions of the microbubbles at a preset sampling frequency to obtain a microbubble image sequence;

[0023] Perform pixel superposition on the microbubble image sequence to obtain a blood vessel image of the target area.

[0024] In some embodiments, identifying the positions of microbubbles in the second ultrasonic image according to the point spread function includes the following steps:

[0025] Perform deconvolution operation on the preprocessed second ultrasonic image using the point spread function to obtain a microbubble distribution image;

[0026] Based on a machine learning algorithm, perform feature extraction on the microbubble distribution image to obtain microbubble features;

[0027] Determine the positions of microbubbles according to the center points of the microbubble features.

[0028] In some embodiments, the blood vessel imaging method based on ultrasonic positioning further includes the following steps:

[0029] Determine microbubble motion information according to the positions of microbubbles in adjacent images of the microbubble image sequence;

[0030] Determine the blood flow direction and blood flow velocity in the target area according to the microbubble motion information.

[0031] To achieve the above object, another aspect of the embodiments of the present application provides a blood vessel imaging system based on ultrasonic positioning, including:

[0032] A first module, configured to scan the current area using an ultrasonic probe to obtain ultrasonic data, and process the ultrasonic data using Doppler imaging technology to obtain a Doppler blood vessel image of the current area;

[0033] A second module, configured to determine whether the current area is a target area according to the Doppler blood vessel image;

[0034] A third module, configured to perform microbubble contrast operation on the blood vessels in the target area when the current area is the target area;

[0035] A fourth module, configured to scan the target area after the microbubble contrast operation using ultrasonic localization microscopy technology to obtain a blood vessel image of the target area.

[0036] To achieve the above object, another aspect of the embodiments of the present application provides an electronic device, the electronic device includes a memory, a processor, a program stored on the memory and executable on the processor, and a data bus for realizing connection communication between the processor and the memory. When the program is executed by the processor, it realizes the blood vessel imaging method based on ultrasonic positioning described in the above embodiments.

[0037] To achieve the above object, another aspect of the embodiments of the present application provides a storage medium, which is a computer-readable storage medium for computer-readable storage. The storage medium stores one or more programs, and the one or more programs can be executed by one or more processors to implement the above-described method for ultrasound localization-based vascular imaging.

[0038] The method, system, device, and storage medium for ultrasound localization-based vascular imaging proposed by the present application, during the process of acquiring vascular images of the required area, first uses an ultrasound probe to scan the current area to obtain ultrasound data, and uses Doppler imaging technology to process the ultrasound data to obtain a Doppler vascular image of the current area. Then, it quickly determines whether the current area is the target area based on the Doppler vascular image. After quickly determining the target area, it performs a microbubble contrast operation on the blood vessels in the target area and uses an ultrasound localization microscope technology to scan the target area after the microbubble contrast operation, thereby obtaining a high-precision vascular image of the target area. The present application quickly locates the target area through Doppler imaging technology, and then uses an ultrasound localization microscope technology based on microbubble contrast to acquire vascular images in the target area, improving the efficiency of the vascular image acquisition process in the target area and simultaneously improving the accuracy of the vascular images. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0039] Figure 1 is a flowchart of the method for ultrasound localization-based vascular imaging provided by the embodiments of the present application;

[0040] Figure 2 is a flowchart of the method for microvascular scene imaging provided by the embodiments of the present application;

[0041] Figure 3 is a schematic diagram of the microvascular scene imaging process provided by the embodiments of the present application;

[0042] Figure 4 is a schematic diagram of the hardware structure of the electronic device provided by the embodiments of the present application. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENTS

[0043] In order to make the objectives, technical solutions, and advantages of the present application clearer, the present application will be further described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings and embodiments. It should be understood that the specific embodiments described herein are only used to explain the present application and are not used to limit the present application.

[0044] It should be noted that although the functional modules are divided in the system schematic diagram and the logical order is shown in the flowchart, in some cases, the steps shown or described can be executed in a different module division from that in the system or a different order from that in the flowchart. The terms "first", "second", etc. in the specification, claims and the above drawings are used to distinguish similar objects and do not necessarily describe a specific order or sequence.

[0045] Unless otherwise defined, all technical and scientific terms used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by those skilled in the technical field to which this application belongs. The terms used herein are only for the purpose of describing the embodiments of this application and are not intended to limit this application.

[0046] Based on this, the embodiments of this application provide a method, system, device and storage medium for vascular imaging based on ultrasonic positioning, aiming to improve the acquisition efficiency of high-precision vascular images of the target area.

[0047] The method, system, device and storage medium for vascular imaging based on ultrasonic positioning provided by the embodiments of this application are specifically described through the following embodiments. First, the method for vascular imaging based on ultrasonic positioning in the embodiments of this application is described.

[0048] The method for vascular imaging based on ultrasonic positioning provided by the embodiments of this application relates to the technical field of ultrasonic medical detection. The method for vascular imaging based on ultrasonic positioning provided by the embodiments of this application can be applied to a terminal, a server, or software running on a terminal or a server. In some embodiments, the terminal can be a smart phone, a tablet computer, a laptop computer, a desktop computer, etc.; the server can be configured as an independent physical server, a server cluster or a distributed system composed of multiple physical servers, or a cloud server providing basic cloud computing services such as cloud services, cloud databases, cloud computing, cloud functions, cloud storage, network services, cloud communications, middleware services, domain name services, security services, CDN, and big data and artificial intelligence platforms; the software can be an application for implementing the method for vascular imaging based on ultrasonic positioning, etc., but is not limited to the above forms.

[0049] This application can be used in numerous general-purpose or special-purpose computer system environments or configurations. For example: personal computers, server computers, handheld or portable devices, tablet devices, multiprocessor systems, microprocessor-based systems, set-top boxes, programmable consumer electronics, network PCs, minicomputers, mainframe computers, distributed computing environments including any of the above systems or devices, and so on. This application can be described in the general context of computer-executable instructions executed by a computer, such as program modules. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, etc. that perform specific tasks or implement specific abstract data types. This application can also be practiced in a distributed computing environment where tasks are performed by remote processing devices connected through a communication network. In a distributed computing environment, program modules can be located in local and remote computer storage media including storage devices.

[0050] The vascular imaging method of the embodiments of this application can be applied to an automatic imaging system. The automatic imaging system includes a control processor, an ultrasound probe, a visualization interaction device, and a microbubble injection device. The ultrasound probe, the visualization interaction device, and the microbubble injection device are all connected to the control processor. The ultrasound probe is used to emit ultrasound signals and receive echo information; the control processor is used to process the echo signals using Doppler imaging technology to quickly generate corresponding ultrasound images, determine the target area through instruction interaction with the visualization interaction device, and process the ultrasound data of the target area using ultrasound localization microscopy technology to obtain a vascular image; the microbubble injection device is used to inject microbubble contrast agent into the target area.

[0051] Figure 1 is an optional flowchart of the vascular imaging method based on ultrasound localization provided by the embodiments of this application, Figure 1 The method in can include but is not limited to steps S101 to S104.

[0052] Step S101, scan the current area with an ultrasound probe to obtain ultrasound data, and process the ultrasound data using Doppler imaging technology to obtain a Doppler vascular image of the current area;

[0053] Step S102, determine whether the current area is the target area according to the Doppler vascular image;

[0054] Step S103, when the current area is the target area, perform microbubble contrast operation on the blood vessels in the target area;

[0055] Step S104, scan the target area after the microbubble contrast operation using ultrasound localization microscopy technology to obtain a vascular image of the target area.

[0056] Steps S101 to S104 shown in the embodiments of the present application, in the process of collecting vascular images of the required area, first use an ultrasound probe to scan the current area to obtain ultrasound data, and use Doppler imaging technology to process the ultrasound data to obtain a Doppler vascular image of the current area. Then, quickly determine whether the current area is the target area based on the Doppler vascular image. After quickly determining the target area, perform a microbubble contrast operation on the blood vessels in the target area and use an ultrasound localization microscopy technique to scan the target area after the microbubble contrast operation, so as to obtain a high-precision vascular image of the target area. The present application quickly locates the target area through Doppler imaging technology, and then uses an ultrasound localization microscopy technique based on microbubble contrast to collect vascular images in the target area, improving the efficiency of the process of collecting vascular images of the target area and at the same time improving the accuracy of the vascular images.

[0057] In step S101 of some embodiments, in the actual process of collecting vascular images, it is necessary to first determine the target area to be collected. In this embodiment, the target area is determined by scanning each area through Doppler imaging technology, which can improve the efficiency of the process of determining the target area. Doppler imaging technology is an ultrasound imaging technology that is specifically sensitive to moving objects. By sending out a series of high-frequency ultrasound sequences to the tissue to obtain reflected signals with ultra-high time resolution, and by analyzing the Doppler signals reflected by moving blood cells, removing the slow motion information of the tissue and retaining the blood cell signals, vascular images at the corresponding positions can be obtained. Specifically, the ultrasound data obtained by scanning each area consists of m groups (for example, m can be about 250) of echo data of different time frames, the single-frame refresh time interval is short (the single-frame refresh time is less than 1 second), and each group of echo data contains plane wave echo signals at n angles. After performing coherent compounding on the ultrasound data and using singular value decomposition filtering processing, an ultrafast Doppler image of blood vessels or microvessels, that is, the Doppler vascular image of the current area, can be obtained.

[0058] In some embodiments, the step of using Doppler imaging technology to process the ultrasound data in step S101 to obtain a Doppler vascular image of the current area may include, but is not limited to, steps S201 to S204:

[0059] Step S201, perform image reconstruction on each frame of echo data in the ultrasound data using the delay superposition method to obtain each frame of first ultrasound image, where each frame of echo data includes multi-angle echo signals;

[0060] Step S202, construct a data matrix based on each frame of first ultrasound image, and perform singular value decomposition processing on the data matrix to obtain a first decomposition feature and a second decomposition feature, where the correlation of the first decomposition feature is greater than that of the second decomposition feature;

[0061] Step S203: Reconstruct the matrix according to the second decomposition feature, and perform image conversion based on the reconstructed data matrix to obtain the Doppler blood cell image of each frame of the first ultrasound image.

[0062] Step S204: Determine the Doppler vascular image of the current region based on the Doppler blood cell images of all frames.

[0063] In this embodiment, the ultrasonic data includes m groups of echo data. For each group of echo data, the plane wave echo signals at various angles are used to reconstruct the image by the delay and sum method, that is, the images corresponding to the echo information at various angles are superimposed (compound coherence reconstruction) to obtain the first ultrasonic image corresponding to this group of echo data, so as to obtain a sequence of the first ultrasonic images including m moments. For each frame of the first ultrasonic image in the sequence of the first ultrasonic images, first convert the two-dimensional first ultrasonic image into a matrix form, and the singular value decomposition filtering algorithm can be used to perform singular value decomposition and singular value selection processing on this matrix, and decompose it into two parts with stronger and weaker correlations, that is, the first decomposition feature and the second decomposition feature. Among them, the first decomposition feature has stronger correlation, which represents the signals of the skull and tissue parts; the second decomposition feature has weaker correlation, which represents the continuously changing blood cell signals. Based on this, in the embodiment of the present application, the part with larger matrix correlation is set to zero to filter out the signals such as the skull and tissue in the image, and then an image is re-synthesized based on the matrix after partial zeroing, the vascular part in each frame of the first ultrasonic image can be extracted to obtain the corresponding Doppler blood cell image, and then the Doppler blood cell images of all frames are superimposed and combined to obtain the Doppler vascular image representing the blood cell distribution in the current region.

[0064] In step S102 of some embodiments, after using the Doppler imaging technology to scan and analyze to obtain the Doppler vascular image of the current region, it is necessary to determine whether the current region is the target region before performing high-precision vascular image acquisition on the target region. The target region is determined according to actual needs or actual scenarios. Exemplarily, for the arterial vascular examination scenario, after scanning and collecting the Doppler vascular images in each region, it can be determined whether there are arterial vessels in the Doppler vascular image. If so, this region is considered the target region; for the microvascular examination scenario, after scanning and collecting the Doppler vascular images in each region, it can be determined whether there are microvessels in the Doppler vascular image. If so, this region is considered the target region. For the identification of the target region, it can be an artificial identification method or a machine identification method. In the embodiment of the machine identification method, a corresponding target recognition model (such as an arterial recognition model, a microvascular recognition model) can be constructed by using a neural network algorithm, and then the Doppler vascular image is input into the constructed target recognition model to obtain the target recognition result (that is, whether the target exists), so as to determine whether the current region is the target region.

[0065] In some embodiments, step S102 may include but is not limited to steps S301 to S302:

[0066] Step S301, displaying a Doppler vascular image of the current area on the visual interaction interface;

[0067] Step S302, when a confirmation operation instruction is received, determining the current area as the target area.

[0068] In this embodiment, in the embodiment of the manual recognition method, after the control processor processes the Doppler vascular image of the current area based on the Doppler imaging technology, the Doppler vascular image is output to the visual interaction interface on the display screen for display. Relevant personnel observe the displayed image. If the displayed image is the required image, relevant personnel can input a confirmation operation instruction through touching the display screen or the control panel. In response to the confirmation operation instruction, the control processor can determine the current area as the target area. Taking cerebrovascular imaging as an example, the user can use the ultrafast Doppler technology with relatively fast imaging time to more real-time observe the vascular structure diagram of the current probe imaging position, and combined with the user's experience, further know whether the current position is appropriate.

[0069] In some embodiments, the vascular imaging method based on ultrasonic positioning in the embodiments of the present application further includes but is not limited to the following steps:

[0070] Step S401, when the current area is not the target area, moving the ultrasonic probe to the next area along a preset path and taking the next area as the current area, and repeating the steps of scanning the current area with the ultrasonic probe to obtain ultrasonic data to judging whether the current area is the target area according to the Doppler vascular image.

[0071] In this embodiment, when the control processor does not receive a confirmation operation instruction within a certain time or receives an instruction indicating that the current area is not the target area, at this time, the control processor moves the ultrasonic probe to the next area along a preset path or the position input by relevant personnel, and repeats steps S101 to S102 as described above in the next area to judge whether the next area is the target area. If not, step S401 is executed, and the above process is continuously repeated until the target area is determined, and then steps S101 to S104 are executed.

[0072] In another embodiment, when the target recognition model in the control processor outputs a result that the current area is not the target area, at this time, the control processor moves the ultrasonic probe to the next area along a preset path or the position input by relevant personnel, and repeats steps S101 to S102 as described above in the next area to judge whether the next area is the target area. If not, step S401 is executed, and the above process is continuously repeated until the target area is determined, and then steps S101 to S104 are executed.

[0073] In step S103 of some embodiments, when the control processor determines that the current region is the target region, the microbubble injection device can be controlled to inject microbubbles into the target position in the target region according to the target position (such as the blood vessel position) identified by the target recognition model. It can be understood that the target position can be marked by relevant personnel on the Doppler blood vessel image of the target region through the visual interaction interface.

[0074] In step S104 of some embodiments, based on the ultrasonic localization microscopy technology of microbubbles, by utilizing the non-linear response and scattering characteristics of microbubbles in the ultrasonic field, injecting microbubbles into the body, and using ultrasonic waves to locate and track the microbubbles, high-resolution imaging of objects such as tiny blood vessels can be achieved, breaking through the resolution limit of traditional ultrasonic imaging and providing more detailed blood vessel anatomical structure information. Specifically, after the microbubble contrast operation, multi-frame and multi-angle plane wave ultrasonic data are also obtained through the ultrasonic probe, the ultrasonic data are subjected to compound coherent reconstruction and filtering processing to obtain an ultrasonic image, single microbubbles with sizes equivalent to the ultrasonic point spread function are identified and segmented in the ultrasonic image, the centroid coordinates of the microbubble point spread function are used as the spatial position of the microbubbles, and then long-term recording is performed to obtain an image sequence, and the image sequence is pixel-overlaid to obtain the ultrasonic localization microscopy imaging result of the blood vessels, and further the ultrasonic localization microscopy image (i.e., the blood vessel image of the target region) is displayed on the visual interaction interface.

[0075] In some embodiments, step S104 may further include but is not limited to steps S501 to S504:

[0076] Step S501, performing ultrasonic scanning on the target region after the microbubble contrast operation to obtain a second ultrasonic image;

[0077] Step S502, identifying the positions of microbubbles in the second ultrasonic image according to the point spread function;

[0078] Step S503, performing ultrasonic scanning and tracking according to the microbubble positions at a preset sampling frequency to obtain a microbubble image sequence;

[0079] Step S504, performing pixel overlay on the microbubble image sequence to obtain the blood vessel image of the target region.

[0080] In this embodiment, first, the reflected acoustic wave signal received by the ultrasonic probe is processed to obtain a second ultrasonic image containing microbubbles. The obtained second ultrasonic image is preprocessed to improve the image quality and reduce noise. The preprocessing process includes operations such as filtering, denoising, and contrast enhancement to highlight the characteristics of microbubbles in the image subsequently. The second ultrasonic image is matched with the point spread function measured in advance, and the microbubble distribution in the second ultrasonic image is determined according to the matching result. Specifically, it can be achieved by calculating the position with the highest matching degree or by analyzing the spatial distribution of the matching result. Using image processing techniques, microbubble-related features are extracted from the second ultrasonic image according to the microbubble distribution, such as information on the shape, size, brightness, and edges of the microbubbles. After the microbubbles are extracted, ultrasonic scanning and tracking are performed on the microbubbles to obtain a sequence of microbubble images, and pixel superposition is performed on each image in the sequence of microbubble images to obtain a high-precision vascular image of the overall distribution of blood cells in the target area.

[0081] It should be noted that the point spread function (PSF) describes the response of the system to a point source, that is, the response pattern formed by a point source on the imaging plane after passing through the system. Since the diameter of the microbubbles (1 to 3 μm) is much smaller than the ultrasonic wavelength (about 100 μm), the microbubbles can be considered as a kind of point source. To accurately identify the position of the microbubbles, it is necessary to calibrate and calibrate the imaging system to obtain accurate point spread function data, so as to measure the point spread function of the imaging system according to the point spread function data.

[0082] In some embodiments, step S502 includes but is not limited to steps S601 to S603:

[0083] Step S601, perform deconvolution operation on the preprocessed second ultrasonic image using the point spread function to obtain a microbubble distribution image;

[0084] Step S602, based on a machine learning algorithm, perform feature extraction on the microbubble distribution image to obtain microbubble features;

[0085] Step S603, determine the position of the microbubbles according to the center point of the microbubble features.

[0086] In this embodiment, the measured PSF is used to perform deconvolution operation on the preprocessed second ultrasonic image to eliminate the influence of the imaging system on the image and restore an image closer to the actual microbubble distribution. Algorithms such as threshold segmentation, morphological operations, or machine learning are used to extract microbubble-related features from the deconvolved microbubble distribution image. According to the extracted microbubble features, their positions in the ultrasonic image are determined, such as measuring the positions of the microbubbles according to the center points or centroids of the microbubbles.

[0087] In some embodiments, the ultrasound localization-based vascular imaging method of the embodiments of the present application further includes, but is not limited to, the following steps:

[0088] Step S701, determining microbubble motion information based on the positions of microbubbles in adjacent images of the microbubble image sequence;

[0089] Step S702, determining the blood flow direction and blood flow velocity in the target area based on the microbubble motion information.

[0090] In this embodiment,

[0091] In step S110, in adjacent frame images of the search window, match microbubble pairs. Specifically, calculate the sum of the distances of all microbubble pairs, and then continuously modify the current match through an augmenting path until the sum of the total distances is minimized, which is considered a successful pairing. Calculate the displacement of the successfully paired microbubble pairs on each frame of the image, and perform differentiation of this displacement with respect to time (the time is the time interval between two frames), so as to obtain the velocity vector of each microbubble. Perform an average calculation on the microbubble velocity vectors in a certain area to obtain the blood vessel flow velocity and direction information within this range.

[0092] According to some embodiments of the present application, with reference to Figure 2 and Figure 3 , in combination with the microvascular detection scenario, the vascular imaging method of the embodiments of the present application is described. With reference to Figure 3 , the vascular imaging method is divided into two stages, namely, the stage of using ultrafast Doppler imaging technology to process ultrasonic echo data to determine the target area and the stage of using ultrasonic localization microscopy technology to process ultrasonic echo data to determine the vascular image of the target area. Specifically, with reference to Figure 2 , as follows:

[0093] S1, acquiring multiple frames of multi-angle plane wave ultrasonic data collected by an ultrasonic probe;

[0094] S2, performing compound coherent reconstruction and filtering processing on the above-mentioned multiple frames of multi-angle plane wave ultrasonic data to obtain a microvascular ultrafast Doppler image; as Figure 3 shown, the ultrasonic probe collects n frames of data at position 1 for processing to obtain a microvascular ultrafast Doppler ultrasonic image;

[0095] S3, displaying the microvascular ultrafast Doppler image;

[0096] S4, determining whether the position of the ultrasonic probe is suitable for imaging the target area; if so, execute step S5; if not, execute step S1;

[0097] S5, acquiring multiple frames of multi-angle plane wave ultrasonic data collected by the ultrasonic probe in the target area; as Figure 3As shown, m frames of data are acquired. In this embodiment, the number of frames m of ultrasonic data acquired in step S1 is much larger than the number of frames n of ultrasonic data acquired in step S5.

[0098] S6. Perform compound coherent reconstruction and filtering processing on the ultrasonic data in step S5.

[0099] S7. Identify and segment microbubbles, extract the centroid coordinates of the point spread function as the positions of the microbubbles.

[0100] S8. Long-term record to obtain an image sequence, and perform pixel superposition on the images in the sequence to obtain an ultrasonic localization microscopic image.

[0101] S9. Display the ultrasonic localization microscopic image.

[0102] S10. Set a search window, determine the change in the microbubble coordinates of the same microbubble in adjacent images, and calculate the blood flow direction and velocity.

[0103] The vascular imaging method of the embodiment of the present application can, under the guidance of microvascular ultrafast Doppler imaging, help the user determine the imaging plane faster, and then use ultrasonic localization microscopic imaging for higher-resolution vascular imaging. Exemplarily, the resolution achievable by microvascular ultrafast Doppler imaging is about 100 μm, and the single-frame refresh time is less than 1 s; the resolution of ultrasonic localization microscopic imaging is about 6 μm, and the single-frame refresh time is about half a minute.

[0104] The embodiment of the present application also provides a vascular imaging system based on ultrasonic localization, including:

[0105] The first module is used to scan the current area with an ultrasonic probe to obtain ultrasonic data, and process the ultrasonic data using Doppler imaging technology to obtain a Doppler vascular image of the current area.

[0106] The second module is used to determine whether the current area is a target area according to the Doppler vascular image.

[0107] The third module is used to perform microbubble contrast operation on the blood vessels in the target area when the current area is the target area.

[0108] The fourth module is used to scan the target area after the microbubble contrast operation using ultrasonic localization microscopy technology to obtain a vascular image of the target area.

[0109] It can be understood that the content in the above-mentioned embodiment of the vascular imaging method based on ultrasonic localization is applicable to the embodiment of this system. The functions specifically implemented by the embodiment of this system are the same as those of the above-mentioned embodiment of the vascular imaging method based on ultrasonic localization, and the beneficial effects achieved are also the same as those of the above-mentioned embodiment of the vascular imaging method based on ultrasonic localization.

[0110] An embodiment of the present application further provides an electronic device, which includes: a memory, a processor, a program stored on the memory and executable on the processor, and a data bus for implementing connection communication between the processor and the memory. When the program is executed by the processor, the above-mentioned ultrasonic positioning-based vascular imaging method is implemented. The electronic device can be any intelligent terminal including a tablet computer, a vehicle-mounted computer, etc.

[0111] Please refer to Figure 4 , Figure 4 which schematically shows the hardware structure of an electronic device in another embodiment. The electronic device includes:

[0112] A processor 901, which can be implemented in ways such as a general-purpose CPU (Central Processing Unit), a microprocessor, an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), or one or more integrated circuits, and is used to execute relevant programs to implement the technical solutions provided by the embodiments of the present application;

[0113] A memory 902, which can be implemented in forms such as a read-only memory (ROM), a static storage device, a dynamic storage device, or a random access memory (RAM). The memory 902 can store an operating system and other application programs. When implementing the technical solutions provided by the embodiments of this specification through software or firmware, the relevant program codes are stored in the memory 902 and are called by the processor 901 to execute the ultrasonic positioning-based vascular imaging method of the embodiments of the present application;

[0114] An input / output interface 903, which is used to implement information input and output;

[0115] A communication interface 904, which is used to implement communication interaction between this device and other devices, and can implement communication through a wired method (such as USB, network cable, etc.) or through a wireless method (such as a mobile network, WIFI, Bluetooth, etc.);

[0116] A bus 905, which transmits information between various components of the device (such as the processor 901, the memory 902, the input / output interface 903, and the communication interface 904);

[0117] Among them, the processor 901, the memory 902, the input / output interface 903, and the communication interface 904 achieve communication connections with each other inside the device through the bus 905.

[0118] The embodiments of the present application also provide a storage medium, which is a computer-readable storage medium for computer-readable storage. The storage medium stores one or more programs, and the one or more programs can be executed by one or more processors to implement the above-mentioned ultrasonic positioning-based vascular imaging method.

[0119] As a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, the memory can be used to store non-transitory software programs and non-transitory computer-executable programs. In addition, the memory may include high-speed random access memory, and may also include non-transitory memory, such as at least one magnetic disk storage device, a flash memory device, or other non-transitory solid-state storage devices. In some embodiments, the memory may optionally include a memory remotely disposed relative to the processor, and these remote memories can be connected to the processor through a network. Examples of the above-mentioned network include but are not limited to the Internet, an enterprise intranet, a local area network, a mobile communication network, and combinations thereof.

[0120] The embodiments described in the embodiments of the present application are for more clearly illustrating the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present application, and do not constitute a limitation on the technical solutions provided by the embodiments of the present application. Those skilled in the art will know that with the evolution of technology and the emergence of new application scenarios, the technical solutions provided by the embodiments of the present application are equally applicable to similar technical problems.

[0121] Those skilled in the art can understand that the technical solutions shown in the figures do not constitute a limitation on the embodiments of the present application, and may include more or fewer steps than those shown in the figures, or combine certain steps, or different steps.

[0122] The system embodiments described above are merely illustrative. The units described as separate components may or may not be physically separated, that is, they may be located in one place, or may be distributed to multiple network units. Some or all of the modules can be selected according to actual needs to achieve the purpose of the solution of this embodiment.

[0123] Those of ordinary skill in the art can understand that all or some of the steps in the methods disclosed above, and the functional modules / units in the systems and devices can be implemented as software, firmware, hardware, and appropriate combinations thereof.

[0124] In the description of the present application and the above-mentioned drawings, the terms "first", "second", "third", "fourth", etc. (if any) are used to distinguish similar objects and are not necessarily used to describe a specific order or sequence. It should be understood that the data used in this way can be interchanged under appropriate circumstances so that the embodiments of the present application described herein can be implemented in an order different from those illustrated or described herein. In addition, the terms "comprising" and "having" and any variations thereof are intended to cover non-exclusive inclusion. For example, a process, method, system, product or device that comprises a series of steps or units is not necessarily limited to those steps or units clearly listed, but may include other steps or units not clearly listed or inherent to these processes, methods, products or devices.

[0125] It should be understood that in the present application, "at least one (item)" means one or more, and "a plurality" means two or more. "And / or" is used to describe the association relationship of associated objects and indicates that three relationships may exist. For example, "A and / or B" may mean: only A exists, only B exists, and both A and B exist at the same time. Among them, A and B can be singular or plural. The character " / " generally indicates that the associated objects before and after are in an "or" relationship. "At least one (one) of the following" or its similar expression refers to any combination of these items, including any combination of single items (ones) or plural items (ones). For example, at least one (one) of a, b, or c may mean: a, b, c, "a and b", "a and c", "b and c", or "a and b and c", where a, b, c can be single or plural.

[0126] In several embodiments provided by the present application, it should be understood that the disclosed systems and methods can be implemented in other ways. For example, the system embodiments described above are merely illustrative. For example, the above-mentioned division of units is only a logical function division, and there may be other division methods in actual implementation. For example, multiple units or components can be combined or integrated into another system, or some features can be ignored or not executed. Another point is that the displayed or discussed coupling or direct coupling or communication connection to each other can be through some interfaces, and the indirect coupling or communication connection of systems or units can be in electrical, mechanical or other forms.

[0127] The units described above as separate components may or may not be physically separated, and the components displayed as units may or may not be physical units, that is, they can be located in one place or distributed to multiple network units. Some or all of the units can be selected according to actual needs to achieve the purpose of the solution of this embodiment.

[0128] In addition, in each embodiment of the present application, each functional unit can be integrated into a processing unit, or each unit can exist physically alone, or two or more units can be integrated into one unit. The above-mentioned integrated unit can be implemented in the form of hardware or in the form of a software functional unit.

[0129] If the integrated unit is implemented in the form of a software functional unit and sold or used as an independent product, it can be stored in a computer-readable storage medium. Based on this understanding, the technical solution of the present application, in essence, or the part that contributes to the prior art, or all or part of the technical solution, can be embodied in the form of a software product. The computer software product is stored in a storage medium and includes multiple instructions for causing a computer device (which can be a personal computer, a server, or a network device, etc.) to execute all or part of the steps of the methods in each embodiment of the present application. The aforementioned storage medium includes: various media that can store programs, such as USB flash drives, mobile hard disks, read-only memories (ROM), random access memories (RAM), magnetic disks, or optical discs.

[0130] The preferred embodiments of the embodiments of the present application have been described above with reference to the accompanying drawings. However, this does not limit the scope of the rights of the embodiments of the present application. Any modifications, equivalent replacements, and improvements made by those skilled in the art without departing from the scope and essence of the embodiments of the present application shall fall within the scope of the rights of the embodiments of the present application.

Claims

1. A vascular imaging method based on ultrasound positioning, characterized in that: The following steps are involved: Scanning the current area with an ultrasonic probe to obtain ultrasonic data, and processing the ultrasonic data with Doppler imaging technology to obtain a Doppler vascular image of the current area; Determining whether the current area is a target area according to the Doppler vascular image; When the current area is a target area, performing a microbubble angiography operation on blood vessels in the target area; The target area after the microbubble angiography operation is scanned using ultrasound positioning microscope technology to obtain a blood vessel image of the target area.

2. The method for vascular imaging based on ultrasound positioning according to claim 1, characterized in that: The method of processing the ultrasound data using Doppler imaging technology to obtain a Doppler vascular image of the current area includes the following steps: Reconstructing each frame of first ultrasonic image by using a delay-and-addition method according to each frame of echo data in the ultrasonic data, wherein each frame of echo data includes multi-angle echo signals; Constructing a data matrix according to each frame of the first ultrasound image, and performing singular value decomposition processing on the data matrix to obtain a first decomposition feature and a second decomposition feature, wherein the correlation of the first decomposition feature is greater than that of the second decomposition feature; reconstructing a matrix according to the second decomposition features, and performing image conversion according to the reconstructed data matrix to obtain a Doppler blood cell image of each frame of the first ultrasound image; The Doppler blood vessel image of the current area is determined according to the Doppler blood cell images of all frames.

3. The method for vascular imaging based on ultrasound positioning according to claim 1, characterized in that: The step of judging whether the current area is a target area according to the Doppler vascular image comprises the following steps: Display the Doppler vascular image of the current area on the visual interactive interface; When a confirmation operation instruction is received, the current area is determined to be the target area.

4. The method for vascular imaging based on ultrasound positioning according to claim 1, characterized in that: The blood vessel imaging method based on ultrasound positioning also includes the following steps: When the current area is not the target area, the ultrasound probe is moved to the next area according to a preset path and the next area is used as the current area, and the steps of scanning the current area with the ultrasound probe to obtain ultrasound data and determining whether the current area is the target area according to the Doppler vascular image are repeated.

5. The method for vascular imaging based on ultrasound positioning according to claim 1, characterized in that: The method of using ultrasound positioning microscope technology to scan the target area after the microbubble angiography operation to obtain a blood vessel image of the target area includes the following steps: Performing ultrasonic scanning on the target area after the microbubble angiography operation to obtain a second ultrasonic image; identifying microbubble locations in the second ultrasound image based on a point spread function; Performing ultrasonic scanning and tracking according to the microbubble positions at a preset sampling frequency to obtain a microbubble image sequence; The microbubble image sequence is pixel-superimposed to obtain a target area blood vessel image.

6. The method for vascular imaging based on ultrasound positioning according to claim 5, characterized in that: The step of identifying the microbubble positions in the second ultrasound image according to the point spread function comprises the following steps: Performing a deconvolution operation on the preprocessed second ultrasound image using a point spread function to obtain a microbubble distribution image; Based on a machine learning algorithm, feature extraction is performed on the microbubble distribution image to obtain microbubble features; The microbubble position is determined based on the center point of the microbubble feature.

7. The method for vascular imaging based on ultrasound positioning according to claim 6, characterized in that: The blood vessel imaging method based on ultrasound positioning also includes the following steps: determining microbubble motion information according to microbubble positions in adjacent images in the microbubble image sequence; The blood flow direction and blood flow velocity in the target area are determined according to the microbubble movement information.

8. A vascular imaging system based on ultrasound positioning, characterized in that: include: The first module is used to scan the current area with an ultrasonic probe to obtain ultrasonic data, and process the ultrasonic data with Doppler imaging technology to obtain a Doppler vascular image of the current area; The second module is used to determine whether the current area is a target area according to the Doppler vascular image; The third module is used for performing microbubble angiography on blood vessels in the target area when the current area is the target area; The fourth module is used to scan the target area after the microbubble angiography operation using ultrasound positioning microscope technology to obtain a blood vessel image of the target area.

9. An electronic device, characterized in that: The electronic device includes a memory, a processor, a program stored in the memory and executable on the processor, and a data bus for realizing connection and communication between the processor and the memory. When the program is executed by the processor, the steps of the vascular imaging method based on ultrasound positioning as described in any one of claims 1 to 7 are realized.

10. A storage medium, the storage medium being a computer-readable storage medium, used for computer-readable storage, characterized in that: The storage medium stores one or more programs, and the one or more programs can be executed by one or more processors to implement the steps of the vascular imaging method based on ultrasound positioning as described in any one of claims 1 to 7.

Images