Three-dimensional shape construction of pulsatile tissue from ultrasonic movies for assistance of clinical diagnosis

Three-dimensional shape of pulsatile tissue due to blood flow, which is one of key diagnostic features in ischemia, has been constructed from 2D ultrasonic movies for assisting clinical diagnosis. The 2D ultrasonic movies (640x480pixels/frame, 8bits/pixel, 33ms/frame) were taken with a conventional ultrasonic apparatus and an ultrasonic probe, while measuring the probe orientations with a compact tilt-sensor. The 2D images of pulsatile strength were obtained from each 2D ultrasonic movie by evaluating a heartbeat-frequency component calculated by Fourier transform of a series of pixel values sampled at each pixel. The 2D pulsatile images were projected into a 3D domain to obtain a 3D grid of pulsatile strength according to the probe orientations. The 3D shape of pulsatile tissue was constructed by determining the iso-surfaces of appropriate strength in the 3D grid. The shapes of pulsatile tissue examined in neonatal crania clearly represented the 3D structures of several arteries such as middle cerebral artery, which is useful for diagnosis of ischemic diseases. Since our technique is based on feature extraction in tissue dynamics, it is also useful for homogeneous tissue, for which conventional 3D ultrasonogram is unsuitable due to unclear tissue boundary.