Patent ID: 8777860

Claim:
A method for the evaluation of renal perfusion and renal function with power Doppler ultrasonography comprising the steps of: (i) using a Power Doppler ultrasound and consecutively capturing serial images on kidney for at least two complete heartbeat cycles and respectively selecting a region of interest (ROI) from a plurality of ROIs, wherein the ROI corresponds to an image in the serial images; (ii) demarcating pixels showing reflected signals of blood flow in each ROI; (iii) within the ROI of each image in the serial images, calculating a ratio through dividing an area by a total area in the ROI to yield a power Doppler vascularity index (PDVI), wherein the area is summed by the pixels showing reflected signals of blood flow; (iv) in all the PDVI of the serial images, taking a maximum PDVI to be divided by a minimum PDVI to yield a renal vascular perfusion index (RVPI); (v) within the ROI of each image in the serial images, obtaining a plurality of normalized pixels through dividing a brightness of each pixel by a maximal brightness; for each image within the serial images, summing the brightness of all the plurality of normalized pixels in the ROI to yield a plurality of color-weighted power Doppler vascularity index (WPDVI), and by working through the serial images, getting a sequence of WPDVIs; (vi) averaging all of the WPDVI values to yield a mean color-weighted power Doppler vascularity index (WPDVI mean ); and, (vii) using the RVPI and the WPDVI mean to evaluate renal vascular perfusion and renal function.