AUTOMATED BREAST ULTRASOUND EQUIPMENT AND METHODS USING ENHANCED NAVIGATOR AIDS

20180028146

15/716650

September 27, 2017

A method and system acquiring, processing and displaying breast ultrasound images in a way that makes breast ultrasound screening more practical and thus more widely used, and reduces the occurrence of missing cancers in screening and diagnosis, using automated scanning of chestwardly compressed breasts with ultrasound. Enhanced, whole-breast navigator overview images are produced from scanning breasts with ultrasound that emphasize abnormalities in the breast while excluding obscuring influences of non-breast structures, particularly those external to the breast such as ribs and chest wall, and differentiating between likely malignant and likely benign abnormalities and otherwise enhancing the navigator overview image and other images, thereby reducing the time to read, screen, and/or diagnose to practical time limits and also reduce screening or diagnostic errors.

1-20. (canceled)

21. A system for ultrasound examination of a patient's breast, comprising: an ultrasound transducer compressing chestwardly a breast of a recumbent patient and scanning the breast with one or more ultrasound transducers to thereby produce original two-dimensional (2D) ultrasound images of the breast that conform to planes extending in chestward directions; a first programmed computer processor module receiving the original images and configured to apply computer processing algorithms thereto to produce one or recumbent more three-dimensional (3D) images representing ultrasound responses of respective volume elements (voxels) of the scanned breast; a second programmed computer module configured to apply computer processing algorithms to at least one of (i) the 2D images and (ii) the 3D images, to thereby find abnormalities in the entire 3D breast tissue that is inward of regions of skin, ribs, and pectoral muscle, including by comparing ultrasound responses for portions of the breast with ultrasound responses for other portions of the breast and taking into account shape properties of potential abnormalities; a third programmed computer module configured to apply computer processing algorithms to at least one of said (i) 2D images and (ii) 3D images to thereby produce a whole-breast navigator structure depicting the entire 3D breast tissue that is inward of said regions; wherein said whole breast navigator structure comprises a selected 2D projection of said entire 3D breast tissue that is inward of said regions and of the abnormalities found by the second programmed computer module; wherein 2D projection whole breast navigator structure shows the locations on abnormalities in two dimensions but not necessarily a true shape of the abnormalities; and a computer display configured to: produce and display a depiction of the whole-breast navigator structure with abnormalities therein; and respond automatically to user input regarding an abnormality in the whole-breast navigator structure by producing and concurrently displaying pop-up depictions of the abnormality as it appears in a coronal image of the scanned tissue that has a selected thickness and in at least one of the 2D original images that also contains the same abnormality.

22. The system of claim 21 in which the third programmed computer module is configured to boost representations of found tissue abnormalities by making the displayed locations of likely malignant abnormalities darker or lighter in the navigator structure than if not boosted.

23. The system of claim 21 in which the third programmed computer module is configured to boost conspicuity of representations of locations of abnormalities that are likely speculations in the navigator structure.

24. The system of claim 21 in which the third programmed computer module is configured to boost conspicuity of representations of abnormalities that are a likely cyst and enhance the location of an image of a cyst in the displayed navigator structure by placing a spot therein that differs from a remainder of the cyst image.

25. The system of claim 21 in which the third programmed computer module is configured to detect and remove influences of ultrasound responses resulting from poor ultrasound transducer-to-breast coupling.

26. The system of claim 21 in which the third programmed computer module is configured to produce the whole-breast navigator structure through a process comprising assigning to a pixel in a projection of the navigator structure a value related to the darkest voxel value in a related column of voxel values.

27. The system of claim 21 in which the third programmed computer module is configured to produce the whole-breast navigator structure through a process comprising assigning to a pixel in a projection of the navigator structure a value related to voxel values along a stretch of 1-3 mm containing the darkest voxel values of a related column of voxel values.

28. The system of claim 21 in which the third programmed computer module is configured to produce the whole-breast navigator structure through a process comprising assigning to a pixel in a projection of the navigator structure a value related to only some of the voxel values of a related column of voxel values.

29. The system of claim 21 in which the ultrasound transducer compresses and scans the breast of a supine patient.

30. A system for automated ultrasound examination of one or both patient's breasts, comprising: a source of a sonographic response acquired by chestwardly compressing a breast of a recumbent patient and scanning the compressed breast tissue with ultrasound emitted and received by an ultrasound transducer electrically and/or mechanically driven for scanning motion relative to the breast; a programmed computer processor configured to apply computer image processing algorithms to the sonographic response thereby producing a three-dimensional (3D) structure representing ultrasound responses for volume elements (voxels) of the scanned breast; said processor being configured to apply computer processing algorithms to (i) segment out influences of non-breast tissue interactions with ultrasound in said scanning, (ii) find tissue abnormalities in the whole-breast 3D structure remaining after said segmenting, including by comparing sonographic response for portions of the breast with sonographic response for other portions of the breast and accounting for shape properties of potential abnormalities; said processor thereby producing a single whole-breast navigator overview image per breast, and being configured to apply filtering algorithms enhancing representations of suspected abnormalities to thereby produce conspicuity enhancements of one or more of the found tissue abnormalities in the overview image; and a computerized display configured to display the single whole-breast navigator overview image per breast in association with selected other images automatically selected and generated from the sonographic response that include representations of at least one abnormality found in the navigator overview image.

31. The system of claim 30 in which the source of the sonographic response is configured to provide the sonographic response from multiple scans with ultrasound of each breasts, the processor is configured to obtain plural enhanced, whole-breast navigator overview images related to the respective plural scans of each breast, and the display is configured to concurrently display the plural enhanced, whole-breast navigator overview images of each breast and automatically selected pop-up coronal thick-slice and chestwardly oriented thin-slice images containing a selected abnormality present in the navigator overview images, wherein said thick-slice image represents a slice of the patient's breast that is thicker than a slice of the breast represented by said thin-slice image.

32. The system of claim 30 in which the processor is configured to form reduced-size images of the enhanced, whole-breast navigator overview images, and the display is configured to concurrently display at least one whole-breast navigator overview image together with the reduced size images and at least one thick-slice coronal image and at least one thin-slice image of the breast containing an abnormality present in the navigator image, wherein said thick-slice image represents a slice of the patient's breast that is thicker than a slice of the breast represented by said thin-slice image.

33. A system for automated ultrasound examination of patient's breasts, comprising: a source of sonographic responses each acquired by compressing patient's breasts chestwardly while the patient is recumbent and scanning the compressed breast tissue with one or more ultrasound transducers electrically or mechanically driven to scan he breast; a programmed computer processor configured to apply computer image processing algorithms to the sonographic responses thereby producing a plurality of whole-breast navigator overview images each representing a three-dimensional breast volume with abnormalities therein found through filtering with said algorithms; said processor being configured to produce each of said plurality of whole-breast navigator overview images by (i) producing from said sonographic responses a three-dimensional (3D) structure representing volume elements (voxels) of scanned tissue, (ii) segmenting out influences of non-breast tissue in said sonographic responses and finding tissue abnormalities in remaining whole-breast 3D structure, including by comparing ultrasound responses for portions of the breast with ultrasound responses for other portions of the breast and accounting for shape properties of potential abnormalities, and (iii) producing conspicuity enhancements of at least some of the found tissue abnormalities; a computerized display configured to display two or more of the plurality of whole-breast navigator overview images to a user, the processor being further being configured to respond to a selection by a user of region of interest (ROI) in a whole breast navigator overview image to cause a display of one or more other images generated from the sonographic response that are associated with the user-selected ROI.

34. The system of claim 33 wherein the selection of the ROI by the user is made by dwelling a pointing device on the ROI.

35. The system of claim 33 wherein one or more other images include at least a portion of an original two-dimensional thin-slice scan image, wherein said thick-slice image represents a slice of the patient's breast that is thicker than a slice of the breast represented by said thin-slice image.

36. The system of claim 33 wherein the processor is further configured to respond to a user input to successively display additional images generated from the sonographic response in the vicinity of the ROI.

37. The system of claim 33 in which the ultrasound transducer compresses and scans the breast of a supine patient.

38. A method of ultrasound examination of a patient's breast, comprising: compressing a patient's breast chestwardly while the patient is recumbent and scanning the breast with an ultrasound transducer through a gel-impregnated membrane in a scanning motion relative to the breast while sending ultrasound energy into the breast and receiving ultrasound energy from scanned tissue, thereby producing ultrasound responses for breast slices that conform to planes extending in chestward directions; applying computer processing to the ultrasound responses thereby producing a three-dimensional (3D) structure representing sonographic response characteristics of volume elements (voxels) of scanned tissue; applying computer processing algorithms to at least one of (i) the ultrasound responses and (ii) 3D structure, thereby segmenting out influences of selected scanned tissue and finding tissue abnormalities in the remaining 3D structure, including by comparing ultrasound responses of portions of the breast with those of other portions of the breast; applying further computer processing algorithms to the remaining 3D structure thereby producing enhancements of at least some of the found tissue abnormalities; applying further computer processing to the 3D structure thereby producing an enhanced whole-breast navigator structure depicting the scanned breast and abnormalities therein that have been enhanced; wherein the enhanced whole-breast navigator structure depicts in two dimensions the entire breast tissue remaining after said segmenting out; producing and displaying a depiction of the enhanced whole-breast navigator structure with abnormalities therein; and responding to user input regarding an abnormality in the whole-breast navigator structure by producing and concurrently displaying pop-up depictions of the abnormality as it appears in a coronal thick-slice image of the scanned tissue that has a selected thickness and in at least one thin-slice chestwardly oriented image, wherein said thick-slice image represents a slice of the patient's breast that is thicker than a slice of the breast represented by said thin-slice image.

39. The method of claim 38 in which the producing of enhancements comprises boosting representations of found tissue abnormalities by making likely malignant abnormalities darker or lighter in the navigator structure than if not boosted.

40. The method of claim 38 in which the producing of enhancements comprises boosting representations of abnormalities that represent likely speculations in the navigator structure.

41. The method of claim 38 in which the compressing step comprises compressing supine patient's breast.

61; 61; 61

edspap.20180028146