Patent ID: 9420991
Filing Date: 2016-08-23
CPC Classification: A61B

Claim Text:
1. An apparatus for ultrasonically scanning a breast, comprising: a radial scanning template configured to contact and chestwardly compress the entire breast while the breast is facing up, wherein the template has a concave inner surface haying a departure angle less than 20° but is not essentially planar, has a rounded periphery and a nipple hole configured for a breast nipple to protrude upwardly therethrough, and has one or more elongated, slot-shaped openings extending in length from the nipple hole toward a periphery of the template; one or more elongated ultrasound transducers each aligned with and extending along the entire length of a respective one of the one or more slot-shaped openings; said template being configured to slidingly rotate over the breast while compressing the breast, and said one or more elongated transducers being configured to rotate with the template slidingly over the breast to scan the breast ultrasonically through the respective one or more slot-shaped openings and to generate original radial 2D ultrasound images of the breast that conform to respective chestwardly directed planes; an actuator configured to mechanically rotate the template for said scanning; a computer-implemented image processing facility associated with the one or more transducers and configured to receive and process the original radial 2D images into (i) one or more images of slices of the breast that have selected thicknesses and orientations and conform to planes transverse to those of the original radial 2D images and (ii) one or more computed 2D images of the breast that conform to respective chestwardly directed planes; and a display facility coupled with the processing facility and configured to concurrently display, under operator control, at least one of the slice images, at least one of the original radial 2D images, and at least one of the computed 2D images; wherein at least one of the displayed original radial 2D image and at least one of the displayed computed 2D images conform to respective chestwardly directed planes angled to each other.