X-ray controlled contract agent injection

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016278725-A1
Application number	US-201314650055-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Dec 13, 2013
Priority date	Dec 19, 2012
Publication date	Sep 29, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

An imaging system including a closed-loop controller (FC) for automatically adapting a power injector system (PJ). The power injector (PJ) injects contrast agent into an object (V) and the imager ( 100 ) acquires one or more images (AN, AN i) of the object (V) with the contrast agent resident therein. The controller (FC) calculates a desired optimal injection rate from the images (AN, AN i ). Controller (FC) then controls the injector (PJ) according to the calculated optimal injection rate.

First claim

1 . An imaging system comprising:
an imager; a closed-loop feedback controller for a power injector, comprising:
an input port for receiving i) a current power injector setting and ii) one or more current images of an object, the one or more image acquired by the imager whilst a fluid is flowing or resides in an object's region of interest and acquired during or after administration into the fluid of contrast agent by the power injector at a current contrast agent flow rate according to the current injector setting;
a fluid property determiner configured to determine, by using in-image information of the current one or more image, a physical property of the fluid;
a power injector setting determiner configured to determine a desired contrast agent flow rate based on the determined current fluid property;
an adjustment back-end configured to interface with the power injector for re-adjusting the power injector setting to effect the desired flow rate, so as to control the influence of the contrast agent flow rate on said fluid property.

2 . System of claim 1 , wherein the fluid property determiner is configured to determine, by using in-image information of the current one or more images, a current fluid flow rate of the fluid;

3 . System of claim 2 , wherein the power injector setting determiner is configured to determine the desired contrast agent flow rate below the current fluid flow rate.

4 . System of claim 3 , wherein the desired contrast agent flow rate is determined a pre-defined percentage value of the current fluid flow rate of the fluid, the percentage value preferably in the region of 30%-40%.

5 . System of claim 1 , further comprising a fluid flow analyzer configured to determine a velocity field of the fluid flow at the region of interest based on one or more follow-up images acquired by the imager whilst the power injector administers contrast agent at the determined desired flow rate.

6 . System of claim 1 , further comprising
an image contrast determiner configured to measure an image contrast in the current one or more image or in the one or more follow-up images, the adjustment back-end configured to interface with i) the power injector for re-adjusting the power injector setting to effect an increase of the contrast agent flow rate if the determined contrast is below a pre-defined contrast threshold or the adjustment back-end configured to interface with ii) the imager to adjust radiation dosage.

7 . System of claim 1 , wherein the fluid is pulsatile and wherein the fluid property determiner operates as a flow pattern determiner configured to measure pulsatile modulation across the one or more image, said measurement based on contrast in the one or more image, the adjustment back-end configured to interface with the power injector for re-adjusting the power injector setting to effect a decrease of the contrast agent flow rate if the measured contrast based pulsatile modulation is below a pre-defined pulsatility threshold.

8 . System of claim 1 , wherein the one or more images or the one or more follow-up images is or are displayed on a screen, the controller comprising a graphical user interface generator for generating on said screen a graphical user interface configured to allow a user to select in the one or more image, when displayed, a sub-image, the flow rate determiner and/or flow pattern determiner and/or image contrast determiner configured to determine in response to the user selected sub-image the current fluid flow rate by using in-image information only in the sub-image.

9 . System of claim 1 , wherein, initially, the power injector administers the contrast agent in a ramp-up phase wherein the contrast agent flow rate rises essentially linearly with pre-defined slope, wherein the controller operates during this ramp-up phase to determine the desired contrast agent flow.

10 . System of claim 5 , comprising a graphics display controller configured to display on the or a screen a graphic depiction of the computed fluid vector field as computed by fluid flow analyzer.

11 . System of claim 1 comprising the power injector for injecting the contrast agent before or after image acquisition by the imager.

12 . Method of controlling a power injector, comprising the steps of:
receiving i) a current power injector setting and ii) a current one or more images of an object, the one or more images acquired by an imager whilst a fluid is flowing or resides in an object's region of interest and acquired during or after administration into the fluid of contrast agent by the power injector at a current contrast agent flow rate according to the current injector setting; determining, by using in-image information of the current one or more images, a physical property of the fluid; determining a desired contrast agent flow rate based on the determined current fluid property; adjusting the power injector setting to effect the desired flow rate, so as to control the influence of the contrast agent flow rate on said fluid property.

13 . Method of claim 12 , wherein the step of determining the physical property includes determining a current fluid flow rate of the fluid.

14 . Method of claim 12 wherein the step of determining the physical property includes determining an amount or degree of pulsatile modulation of the fluid including the contrast agent.

15 . Method of claim 12 comprising the steps of:
determining a vector field of the fluid flow at the region of interest based on one or more follow-up images acquired by the imager whilst the power injector administers contrast agent at the determined desired flow rate; and
displaying on a screen a graphic depiction of the determined vector field.

16 . A computer program element for controlling a system according to claim 1 , which, when being executed by a processing unit is adapted to perform method steps.

17 . A computer readable medium having stored thereon the program element of claim 16 .

Assignees

• Koninklijke Philips Nv

Inventors

• Van Nijnatten Fred Simon Berend

Classifications

• A61M5/007

  for contrast media · CPC title

• A61B6/461

  Displaying means of special interest · CPC title

• A61B6/54

  Control of apparatus or devices for radiation diagnosis · CPC title

• A61B6/504

  for diagnosis of blood vessels, e.g. by angiography · CPC title

• A61B5/0275

  using tracers, e.g. dye dilution · CPC title