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4961425 Morphometric analysis of anatomical tomographic data
Resonance Imaging, Vol. IO, pp. Printed in the USA. All rights reserved.
Magnetic
I-111, 1992 Copyright
0
0730-725x/92 $5.00 + 30 1992 Pergamon Press Ltd.
NEW PATENTS This Section contains abstracts and, where appropriate, illustrations of recently issued United States patents and published patent applications filed from over 30 countries under the Patent Cooperation Treaty. This information was obtained from recent additions to the Pergamon PATSEARCH@ online database in accordance with interest profiles developed by the Editors. Further information about Pergamon PATSEARCH”@ can be obtained from Pergamon Orbit InfoLine Inc., 8000 Westpark Drive, McLean, Virginia 22102, U.S.A. Copies of complete
patents
announced
in this Section
are available
from Pergamon
Orbit InfoLine
Inc. for $8
per copy. Payment with order is required. Orders outside North America add $2 for air postage. Order by patent number
for Pergamon
Orbit
InfoLine
only.
33391
putting system emitting an illuminating light out of the illuminating window. The NMR metering antenna is fitted to the outer periphery including the tip surface of the insertable part of the endoscope body and can be connected to the NMR metering apparatus.
PROCESS FOR IMAGING BY NUCLEAR MAGNETIC RESONANCE Eric Breton, Denis Le Bihan, Patrick Le Roux, Voisins le Bretenneux, MD, France assigned to Thomson-CGR
4961054 GRADIENT CURRENT SPEED-UP CIRCUIT FOR HIGH-SPEED NMR IMAGING SYSTEM
The invention proposes an imaging process by nuclear magnetic resonance in which a calculated image is given corresponding to the molecular diffusion value at each point of an investigated medium. The diffusion image is obtained by comparing images relative to same sections of the medium and acquired during two excitation sequences, whereof one is not very sensitive to the diffusion and the other is particularly sensitive thereto. These two images undergo comparison in order to produce a diffusion image.
John N Park, Otward M Mueller, Peter Roemer assigned to General Electric Company A gradient current speed-up circuit, for use in a higher-speed NMR imaging system with a gradient power amplifier and an associated gradient coil, has an energy-storage element, with an inductance typically between 5 and 20 times the inductance of the associated gradient coil. A plurality of semiconductor switching elements receive the current output of the energy-storage element; and the associated gradient coil is connected between selected ones of these semiconductors devices. The semiconductor devices are turned on and off in selected patterns, to cause the energy-storage element current to be suddenly applied to and removed from flow through the associated gradient coil.
4960106 ENDOSCOPE
APPARATUS
Takashi Hiroaki Tsukaya, Kubokawa, Yasuhiro Ueda, Takeaki Nakamura, Yutaka Ohshima, Hiroki Hibino, Shyuichi Takayama, Tadao Hagino, Hachioji, Japan assigned to Olympus Optical Co Ltd
4961425
This NMR metering endoscope apparatus is provided with an endoscope body and an NMR metering loop-like antenna. The endoscope body is provided with an elongate insertable part having an observing window and illuminating window in the tip part an observing system for observing an object by receiving a light coming from the object and entering through the observing window and an illuminating light out-
MORPHOMETRK ANALYSIS OF ANATOMICAL TOMOGRAPHIC DATA David Kennedy, Pauline Filipek, Verne Caviness assigned to Massachusetts Institute of Technology I
II
New Patents
A system for automatically determining the outline of a selected anatomical feature or region (e.g., in a slice of magnetic resonance data) and then making a quantitative determination of a morphometric parameter (such as area or volume) associated with the feature. A volumetric measurement of the feature is made by determining for each slice the areas within the outline for the feature and summing the areas for all the slices; the outlines are based on intensity contours, where the intensity of the contour is intermediate that within and outside of the feature; the intermediate intensity is chosen objectively based on a histogram of intensity levels; interpolation is used to assign contour locations in areas where the intensity of the contour is not present exactly; the accuracy of the outline is improved using an edge-optimization procedure in which the outline is shifted transversely to the location at which an estimate of the derivative (e.g., the Sobel operator) is a maximum; an alternative technique for choosing the initial outline is to examine the drop or rise in intensity afong a radical direction from a starting point within the region of interest and assign the contour to the location at which the difference in intensity reaches a predetermined value; the optimized outline for the first slice of data is saved and used as the initial outline for the adjoining slice, and the procedure of adjusting the outline transversely to the location at which a derivative estimate is a maximum is repeated, and so on, until outlines have been generated for all slices.
4962357 TWO-DIMENSIONAL METHOD FOR SPECTRAL EDITING OF NMR SIGNALS PRODUCED BY METABOLITES CONTAINING COUPLED SPINS Christopher
H Sotak
An NMR method for acquiring the volume localized, in vivo proton spectra of spin-spin coupled metabolites employs a series of stimulated echo pulse sequences (90-TE/2-90-t l90-TE/Z). The value of period tl is different for each of the pulse sequences in the series, and the NMR signals produced by the series of pulse sequences are acquired and digitized to form a two-dimensional data array. A two-dimensional Fourier transformation is performed on this data array to produce an array of data that is employed to generate a contour plot.
4962763 MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGE SYNTHESIZING SYSTEM Shinichi Sato, Koichi Sano, Hideki Koizumi, Yokohama, Hitachi Ltd
4961426 METHOD FOR RETROSPECTIVELY GATING NMR DATA Thomas Siemens
Spraggins, Steven Owens Medical Systems Inc
assigned
to
NMR imaging data are acquired using a variable phase-encoding gradient. NMR nonimaging data are acquired using fixed phaseencoding, and motion data are derived from such NMR non-imaging data. Gating data are extracted from the motion data and used to select from the NMR imaging data to produce gated image data. The gated image data are used to produce a reconstructed image.
Tetsu Yokoyama, Japan assigned to
A magnetic resonance image synthesizing system comprising a magnetic field generating section for generating a static magnetic field, a gradient magnetic field and a radio-frequency magnetic field and for irradiating those magnetic fields to an object to be examined, a receiver for detecting a magnetic resonance signal supplied from the object to be examined, a processing unit for calculating and constructing an MR image and distribution of blood velocity or relaxation time on the basis of the detected nuclear magnetic resonance signal, a sequence control section for controlling the gradient magnetic field and the radio-frequency magnetic field as well as the receiver, a display unit for displaying an MR image, and a manipulation section for specifying a necessary position on the screen of the display unit, the processing unit further making the display unit display an MR image calculated and synthesized on the basis of scanning parameters and a blood velocity or relaxation time defined in accordance with a position specified in the manipulation section.
Magnetic
I-111, 1992 Copyright
0
0730-725x/92 $5.00 + 30 1992 Pergamon Press Ltd.
NEW PATENTS This Section contains abstracts and, where appropriate, illustrations of recently issued United States patents and published patent applications filed from over 30 countries under the Patent Cooperation Treaty. This information was obtained from recent additions to the Pergamon PATSEARCH@ online database in accordance with interest profiles developed by the Editors. Further information about Pergamon PATSEARCH”@ can be obtained from Pergamon Orbit InfoLine Inc., 8000 Westpark Drive, McLean, Virginia 22102, U.S.A. Copies of complete
patents
announced
in this Section
are available
from Pergamon
Orbit InfoLine
Inc. for $8
per copy. Payment with order is required. Orders outside North America add $2 for air postage. Order by patent number
for Pergamon
Orbit
InfoLine
only.
33391
putting system emitting an illuminating light out of the illuminating window. The NMR metering antenna is fitted to the outer periphery including the tip surface of the insertable part of the endoscope body and can be connected to the NMR metering apparatus.
PROCESS FOR IMAGING BY NUCLEAR MAGNETIC RESONANCE Eric Breton, Denis Le Bihan, Patrick Le Roux, Voisins le Bretenneux, MD, France assigned to Thomson-CGR
4961054 GRADIENT CURRENT SPEED-UP CIRCUIT FOR HIGH-SPEED NMR IMAGING SYSTEM
The invention proposes an imaging process by nuclear magnetic resonance in which a calculated image is given corresponding to the molecular diffusion value at each point of an investigated medium. The diffusion image is obtained by comparing images relative to same sections of the medium and acquired during two excitation sequences, whereof one is not very sensitive to the diffusion and the other is particularly sensitive thereto. These two images undergo comparison in order to produce a diffusion image.
John N Park, Otward M Mueller, Peter Roemer assigned to General Electric Company A gradient current speed-up circuit, for use in a higher-speed NMR imaging system with a gradient power amplifier and an associated gradient coil, has an energy-storage element, with an inductance typically between 5 and 20 times the inductance of the associated gradient coil. A plurality of semiconductor switching elements receive the current output of the energy-storage element; and the associated gradient coil is connected between selected ones of these semiconductors devices. The semiconductor devices are turned on and off in selected patterns, to cause the energy-storage element current to be suddenly applied to and removed from flow through the associated gradient coil.
4960106 ENDOSCOPE
APPARATUS
Takashi Hiroaki Tsukaya, Kubokawa, Yasuhiro Ueda, Takeaki Nakamura, Yutaka Ohshima, Hiroki Hibino, Shyuichi Takayama, Tadao Hagino, Hachioji, Japan assigned to Olympus Optical Co Ltd
4961425
This NMR metering endoscope apparatus is provided with an endoscope body and an NMR metering loop-like antenna. The endoscope body is provided with an elongate insertable part having an observing window and illuminating window in the tip part an observing system for observing an object by receiving a light coming from the object and entering through the observing window and an illuminating light out-
MORPHOMETRK ANALYSIS OF ANATOMICAL TOMOGRAPHIC DATA David Kennedy, Pauline Filipek, Verne Caviness assigned to Massachusetts Institute of Technology I
II
New Patents
A system for automatically determining the outline of a selected anatomical feature or region (e.g., in a slice of magnetic resonance data) and then making a quantitative determination of a morphometric parameter (such as area or volume) associated with the feature. A volumetric measurement of the feature is made by determining for each slice the areas within the outline for the feature and summing the areas for all the slices; the outlines are based on intensity contours, where the intensity of the contour is intermediate that within and outside of the feature; the intermediate intensity is chosen objectively based on a histogram of intensity levels; interpolation is used to assign contour locations in areas where the intensity of the contour is not present exactly; the accuracy of the outline is improved using an edge-optimization procedure in which the outline is shifted transversely to the location at which an estimate of the derivative (e.g., the Sobel operator) is a maximum; an alternative technique for choosing the initial outline is to examine the drop or rise in intensity afong a radical direction from a starting point within the region of interest and assign the contour to the location at which the difference in intensity reaches a predetermined value; the optimized outline for the first slice of data is saved and used as the initial outline for the adjoining slice, and the procedure of adjusting the outline transversely to the location at which a derivative estimate is a maximum is repeated, and so on, until outlines have been generated for all slices.
4962357 TWO-DIMENSIONAL METHOD FOR SPECTRAL EDITING OF NMR SIGNALS PRODUCED BY METABOLITES CONTAINING COUPLED SPINS Christopher
H Sotak
An NMR method for acquiring the volume localized, in vivo proton spectra of spin-spin coupled metabolites employs a series of stimulated echo pulse sequences (90-TE/2-90-t l90-TE/Z). The value of period tl is different for each of the pulse sequences in the series, and the NMR signals produced by the series of pulse sequences are acquired and digitized to form a two-dimensional data array. A two-dimensional Fourier transformation is performed on this data array to produce an array of data that is employed to generate a contour plot.
4962763 MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGE SYNTHESIZING SYSTEM Shinichi Sato, Koichi Sano, Hideki Koizumi, Yokohama, Hitachi Ltd
4961426 METHOD FOR RETROSPECTIVELY GATING NMR DATA Thomas Siemens
Spraggins, Steven Owens Medical Systems Inc
assigned
to
NMR imaging data are acquired using a variable phase-encoding gradient. NMR nonimaging data are acquired using fixed phaseencoding, and motion data are derived from such NMR non-imaging data. Gating data are extracted from the motion data and used to select from the NMR imaging data to produce gated image data. The gated image data are used to produce a reconstructed image.
Tetsu Yokoyama, Japan assigned to
A magnetic resonance image synthesizing system comprising a magnetic field generating section for generating a static magnetic field, a gradient magnetic field and a radio-frequency magnetic field and for irradiating those magnetic fields to an object to be examined, a receiver for detecting a magnetic resonance signal supplied from the object to be examined, a processing unit for calculating and constructing an MR image and distribution of blood velocity or relaxation time on the basis of the detected nuclear magnetic resonance signal, a sequence control section for controlling the gradient magnetic field and the radio-frequency magnetic field as well as the receiver, a display unit for displaying an MR image, and a manipulation section for specifying a necessary position on the screen of the display unit, the processing unit further making the display unit display an MR image calculated and synthesized on the basis of scanning parameters and a blood velocity or relaxation time defined in accordance with a position specified in the manipulation section.