Patent ID: 8480589

Claim:
An ultrasound imaging method comprising the steps of: transmitting a prescanning ultrasonic beam toward a subject inside a cranium and measuring an ultrasonic echo reflected by a bone structure forming the cranium in advance of imaging the subject within the cranium; determining a transfer function of the measured ultrasonic echo in the bone structure forming the cranium; transmitting an imaging ultrasonic beam toward the subject; generating a cancelling ultrasonic beam, said cancelling ultrasonic beam having an opposite phase with respect to a bone-reflected ultrasonic echo reflected by the bone structure forming the cranium due to said imaging ultrasonic beam, based on said transfer function; receiving a subject-reflected ultrasonic echo from the subject inside the cranium due to the imaging ultrasonic beam while cancelling the bone-reflected ultrasonic echo reflected by the bone structure forming the cranium by transmitting said cancelling ultrasonic beam in accordance with the bone-reflected ultrasonic echo reflected by the bone structure forming the cranium due to said imaging ultrasonic beam; and generating an ultrasound image of the subject based on the subject-reflected ultrasonic echo received from the subject.