Patent ID: 8047994

Claim:
An ultrasound imaging method for determining the presence of contrast agents in a body under examination, comprising the steps of: transmitting at least one beam of acoustic waves into the body under examination which carries contrast agents, said waves are transmitted by an array of electroacoustic transducers at a fundamental transmission frequency and are focused on at least one scan line; receiving an acoustic beam reflected from said body under examination and the contrast agents by using an array of receiving electroacoustic transducers, said transducers are constructed and arranged to generate an electric return signal corresponding to the reflected acoustic beam along said at least one scan line; separating and storing a harmonic component, a subharmonic component and the fundamental component of said return signal; generating a B-mode image from the fundamental component of the return signal; determining and storing the amplitudes of the return signal for each of the fundamental, harmonic and subharmonic components at each reflected point along said scan line; discriminating a reflector type for each reflected point along the scan line as being tissue or contrast agent by comparing the amplitudes of the fundamental, harmonic and subharmonic components of the return signal; defining the reflector type as a contrast agent when the subharmonic component of the return signal has an amplitude above a predetermined minimum amplitude; displaying the B-mode image generated from the fundamental component of the return signal; and changing the appearance of the pixels of the B-mode image depending on the determined reflector type of the signal related to the corresponding pixel on the B-mode image.