Patent ID: 11957517
Assignee: UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER
Field: Medical technology (Instruments)
Classification: CPC A  G | IPC A  G

Claim 0:
1. A system for ultrasound imaging of tendon regions comprising:
an ultrasound image acquisition unit including an ultrasound transducer, a support for a patient's body part containing a tendon, a coupling agent for acoustic coupling of the transducer to the body part on the support, and an automated drive moving the transducer in a selected trajectory relative to the body part on the support to take ultrasound images thereof;
an automated, computer-implemented segmentation facility configured to segment scar tissue from said images and/or from a three-dimensional representation of the imaged body part and derive a scar tissue estimate of the scar tissue in a selected volume of the body part;
an automated, computer-implemented facility configured to test the scar tissue estimate against parameters derived from a multiplicity of teaching ultrasound images of the scar tissue associated with respective known tendon healing parameters and derive an estimate of expected healing parameters for the body part; and
an automated, computer-implementing facility using the estimate of the expected healing parameter of the body part to provide one or more parameters pertaining to a treatment guide, medication dosing, and disability classification.