Patent ID: 6371912
Filing Date: 2002-04-16
Classification: A61B,G01S

Abstract:
An ultrasound method for detecting a region of altered stiffness contained within a medium, comprising the steps of:(a) delivering a set of tracking pulses from a plurality of transducer elements in an ultrasound transducer array to a plurality of target regions in a two-dimensional plane within said medium to detect initial positions for said plurality of target regions; (b) storing said initial positions for said plurality of target regions; (c) delivering a first set of pushing pulses from a plurality of said transducer elements to a forcing region among said target regions to displace said target regions to displaced positions; then (d) delivering a second set of tracking pulses from said plurality of transducer elements in said ultrasound transducer array to said plurality of target regions to detect displaced positions for said plurality of target regions; (e) storing said displaced positions for said plurality of target regions; repeating steps (a) through (e) in a series of cycles, with said pushing pulses being delivered to a different forcing region and different plurality of target regions during each of said cycles; (g) generating a two-dimensional displacement map from each of said initial positions and displaced positions for each of said forcing regions to produce a plurality of two-dimensional displacement maps; and then (h) combining said plurality of two-dimensional displacement maps into a single combined image, with a region of altered stiffness being indicated by a region of altered displacement within said combined image.