Ultrasound method employing echoes from a region of interest to enable quantization of backscatter signals

摘要

The method of the invention controls an ultrasound unit to characterize echo signals from a region of interest (ROI) and to adjust unit parameters in accord therewith. The method initially defines a region of interest within an ultrasound image and processes received echo values from the region of interest to determine characteristics of the received echo values. Then at least one system parameter of the ultrasound unit is adjusted to cause the received echo values from the ROI to exhibit a desired characteristic. The derived system parameter is then used to control the ultrasound unit to produce a subsequent ultrasound image that includes the ROI as a portion thereof. The method of the invention further enables a user of an ultrasound system to obtain a quantitative measure of blood perfusion of an investigational region of interest (IROI), Data from a normalization region of interest (NROI) is used to create a normalization value to characterize the image echoes from the NROI. Thereafter, the normalized values of the image backscatter values are calculated through use of the normalization value and an image of the IROI is displayed, using the image echo values from the IROI.