MEDICAL IMAGING SYSTEM BASED ON A TARGETED CONTRAST AGENT

摘要

A medical imaging system (105) is proposed. The system includes means (405- 415;435c) for providing a plurality of echo signals indicative of a response of a body part to a plurality of ultrasound pulsed waves having different acoustic pressures, the body part including a tissue being perfused with a contrast agent, and means (420a-420c) for discriminating in the echo signals a contribution of a first type of contrast agent from a contribution of a second type of contrast agent and/or of the tissue, at least one harmonic component of the contribution of the first type of contrast agent having an acoustic power changing according to a first dependency law on the acoustic pressure and the at least one harmonic component of the contribution of the second type of contrast agent and/or of the tissue having an acoustic power changing according to at least one second dependency law on the acoustic pressure, wherein the means for discriminating includes means (425a,430a-425c,430c) for significantly reducing the at least one harmonic component of the contribution of the second type of contrast agent and/or of the tissue with respect to the at least one harmonic component of the contribution of the first type of contrast agent according to the corresponding dependency laws.