Patent ID: 11872082
Assignee: ECHOSENS
Field: Medical technology (Instruments)
Classification: CPC A | IPC A

Claim 0:
1. An elastography device comprising:
a probe, to be held against the body of a subject, the probe comprising:
a single ultrasound transducer; or a plurality of ultrasound transducers, all ultrasound transducers of the probe being motionless with respect to each other, and
a low frequency vibrator, arranged to induce a displacement of said single ultrasound transducer or plurality of ultrasound transducers towards a tissue to be characterized, and

an electronic unit comprising an electronic circuit, configured to control the single ultrasound transducer or plurality of ultrasound transducers to emit a sequence of ultrasound pulses in said tissue to be characterized, and configured to acquire echo signals received by the single ultrasound transducer or plurality of ultrasound transducers in response to the ultrasound pulses emitted, in order to track how elastic waves, induced in the tissue by the displacement of the single ultrasound transducer or the plurality of ultrasound transducers, travel in said tissue,
the electronic unit being further configured to generate, for at least one ultrasound pulse of the sequence of ultrasound pulses emitted:
a temporal offset upon emission, by which the emission of said at least one ultrasound pulse is temporally shifted such that a temporal duration between two successive ultrasound pulses varies in said sequence of ultrasound pulses,
and/or a temporal offset upon reception, by which an echo signal, acquired in response to said emitted ultrasound pulse is temporally shifted,
so as to compensate for a temporal shift of said echo signal with respect to other echo signals acquired, caused by the displacement of the ultrasound transducer or plurality of ultrasound transducers occurring during said sequence of ultrasound pulses,
the temporal offset upon emission and/or the temporal offset upon reception being adjusted so that a difference thereof varies as a function of 2·d/vus, where d is the displacement of the single transducer or plurality of ultrasound transducers at the time of emission, and where vus is the speed of ultrasound in said tissue.