Patent ID: 8622913

Claim:
A method of continuous non-invasive monitoring of a plurality of arterial parameters of a patient, the method comprising: acquiring continuously measured ultrasound data via an ultrasound transducer attached to the patient for detecting a blood vessel through a short-axis view and using color flow processing within a monitoring scan plane; determining a centerline of the blood vessel through a volume using data from a plurality of tracking scan planes; determining a blood flow direction along the centerline; estimating a Doppler angle and a flow angle for the monitoring scan plane; checking if the Doppler angle is above or below a threshold value and adjusting tilt of the monitoring scan plane; estimating a contour of the blood vessel within the monitoring scan plane using a B-mode image; estimating a cross-sectional area of the blood vessel based on the estimated contour and the centerline of the blood vessel; reducing noise in two-dimensional blood velocity estimates obtained from the color flow processing; estimating a volumetric flow rate of blood from the two-dimensional blood velocity estimates within the monitoring scan plane, the centerline and the contour of the blood vessel; updating the centerline within a volume of the blood vessel using data from the plurality of tracking scan planes; generating continuous quantitative waveforms based on the cross-sectional area of the blood vessel and the volumetric flow rate of blood through the vessel; and displaying the generated continuous quantitative waveforms for monitoring the arterial parameters of the patient in real-time.