eFLOW

eFLOW is a high-definition blood flow imaging mode with drastically improved spatial and temporal resolution. In eFLOW it is possible to display blood flow information with higher sensitivity and resolution than with conventional methods. This enables detailed observation of fine blood vessels such as those inside a tumor, which were difficult to display separately in conventional methods. eFLOW has a resolving power that can separately display the hepatic artery running alongside the portal vein.

In conventional Colour Flow and Power Flow, spatial resolution is low and sometimes blood vessels are displayed thicker than the actual size due to blooming and it was difficult to differentiate two thin blood vessels running in parallel.

In eFLOW, thanks to widened bandwidth of the ultrasound transmitter/receiver and reviewing processing method, a new blood flow imaging mode having high spatial resolution and high temporal resolution was realized. In addition eFLOW suppresses attenuation of the blood flow signal in each data processing, and enhances the processing to discriminate blood flow from tissue, enabling fine blood vessels including flow direction to be displayed, which is clinically useful.

Directional display, which is useful for identifying blood vessels, overcomes the problem of trade-off between high detectability of low velocity flows and aliasing. The directional eFLOW (D-eFLOW) offers blood flow information with high resolution by optimizing the transmission/reception sequence and the settings of color coding and others according to the purpose of the examination.