Patent Document ID: 10101450
Application ID: 14937037
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. An ultrasound medical image processing apparatus comprising: processing circuitry configured to obtain a plurality of images, each of the plurality of images acquired using respective values of one or more scanning parameters for an ultrasonic wave transmitted into a target region that differ from values of the one or more scanning parameters used to acquire other of the plurality of images, the one or more scanning parameters including at least one of a center frequency of the transmitted ultrasonic wave and a steering angle of the transmitted ultrasonic wave, decompose each of the plurality of images into a global component and a local component, the global component indicating a global stricture in the target region and the local component indicating a local structure in the target region, wherein, for each one of the plurality of images, the global component of each one of the plurality of images is determined by applying a spatial low-pass filter to each one of the plurality of images to generate respective pixels of the global component that represent a moving average of pixel values in each one of the plurality of images, and the local component of each one of the plurality of images is determined using differences between each one of the plurality of images and the corresponding global component, generate enhanced local components by performing edge detection on the respective global components to generate enhancement coefficients representing a measure of edge degree, and multiplying the enhancement coefficients with the respective local components, and form a compound image that emphasizes edges in a body tissue in the target region using the global components and the enhanced local components; and a display to display the compound image in which the edge is emphasized.