| abstract |
Guidance in acquiring ultrasound imaging of a subject to achieve a target view, such as a standard view, entails emitting ultrasound to the subject and receiving, in response, a current ultrasound view (502);matching the received image to a pre-existing image, such as a three-dimensional reference image(503); and, for user assistance, generating, based on the matching, feedback (514-528) for the guidance. The reference image may be a statistical atlas or it may be derived from patient-specific CT or MR scans. The pre-existing image may instead be a database image corresponding to a state in a state space. The feedback can be an image derived from the reference image;a graphic indication (508) of a plane of the target view; the received view fused (512) to an image derived from the reference image; or the received view and an image derived from said reference image, the derived image appearing concurrently and enhanced to spatially indicate where the received view registers to the reference image. The target view (510) may be a view of a body organ, or vessel,of the subject. Both the atlas and database can be specialized for imaging of an organ,or vessel, and its surrounding tissue. |