SISTEMA E METODO PER FORNIRE ANALISI VARIABILI DI ULTRASUONI IN UNMODO DOPO MEMORIZZAZIONE

A system and method for accumulating ultrasound information from a region of interest during a storage period are disclosed. The accumulated ultrasound information is then processed during a post-storage operation to provide a number of various and selectable analysis and display modes. Ultrasound echo signal data comprising, for example, a complete set of raw RF signal samples (or the quadrature signals I & Q) are accumulated in a cinescan memory during a storage period for multiple range positions along one or more scan lines covering a region of interest. Line interleaving and multi-line acquisition techniques may be employed in data accumulation. The accumulated echo signal data is processed during a post-storage operation to provide a number of various and selectable analysis and display modes. During the post-storage playback operation, any known signal processing and data manipulation techniques, which have conventionally been carried out in real-time during a scanning session, may be employed. The various known parameters of signal processing and data manipulation may be selectably modified during post-storage playback to optimize the displayed output. For example, in an off-line playback mode, the system operator may select any scan line and Doppler gate location and width within the region of interest for spectral Doppler analysis or for color M-mode analysis. The system operator may also manually set and reset one or more beam/vessel angles during the off-line playback mode to provide quantitative velocity color mapping. Other parameters such as spectrum scale, Doppler dynamic range, Doppler gain, baseline and color mapping may also be modified during off-line playback. Other known signal processing operations such as noise suppression, filtering, low intensity rejection and/or fixed target canceling may be performed, and the parameters thereof adjusted, during the post-storage operation.