Patent ID: 8747317

Claim:
A method for modifying a general purpose ultrasound system, the general purpose ultrasound system being conventionally equipped with first and second ports each configured to couple to a hand-held probe, the method comprising: coupling a hand-held probe to said first port; coupling a mechanically-driven breast scanning probe to said second port, said mechanically-driven breast scanning probe being a component of a full-field breast ultrasound (FFBU) scanning apparatus including probe driving hardware and associated probe driving circuitry; compressing a patient's breast with a flexible material sheet configured to contact and chestwardly compress the patient's breast, and scanning the patient's breast with an elongated ultrasonic transducer driven mechanically to scan across the breast while moving in a direction along a chest wall of the patient while sending into the breast and receiving from the breast ultrasound energy passing through said flexible material sheet; establishing a data communication path between said probe driving circuitry and said general purpose ultrasound system; and programming said general purpose ultrasound system to accommodate both (i) a first operating mode in which said hand-held probe is operated in a conventional manner and signals therefrom are processed according to a conventional hand-held operation of the general purpose ultrasound system, and (ii) a second operating mode in which said breast scanning probe is mechanically driven under control of the general purpose ultrasound system while signals therefrom are processed by the general purpose ultrasound system to generate FFBU breast image data.