Method and apparatus for three-dimensional ultrasound imaging using contrast agents and harmonic echoes

摘要

A method and an apparatus for displaying three-dimensional images of ultrasound data having improved segmentation. This is accomplished by harmonic imaging. There are two types of harmonic imaging: (a) imaging of harmonics returned from contrast agents injected into the fluid; and (b) naturally occurring harmonics, generally referred to as "tissue harmonics". An ultrasound transducer array (2) is controlled to transmit a beam formed by ultrasound pulses having a transmit center frequency and focused at a desired sample volume containing contrast agents. In the receive mode, the receiver (4) forms the echoes returned at a multiple or sub-multiple of the transmit center frequency into a beam-summed receive signal. This process is repeated for each sample volume in each one of a multiplicity of scan planes. After filtering out the undesired frequencies in the receive signal, i.e., passing substantially all of the desired (sub)harmonic signals, the ultrasound scanner processes the (sub)harmonic signals to acquire B-mode, velocity or flow power data and then collects that data in a cine memory to form a volume of pixel display data which is used to generate a three-dimensional image