Systems and methods for automatic detection and visualization of turbulent blood flow using vector flow data

1. A system for visualization and quantification of ultrasound imaging data, the system comprising:

a display unit;

a processor communicatively coupled to the display unit and to an ultrasound imaging apparatus for generating an image from ultrasound data representative of a bodily structure and fluid flowing within the bodily structure, wherein the processor is configured to:

estimate axial and lateral velocity components of the fluid flowing within the bodily structure;

determine a plurality of flow directions within the image based on the axial and lateral velocity components, the flow directions each defining an angle;

automatically identifying a flow region comprising flow directions of statistical significance based on a statistical analysis indicative of the flow region having flow variability; and

responsive to the identifying, cause the display unit to display the image including the bodily structure and the statistically significant flow region automatically identified.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the statistical significance comprises a moving average, a standard deviation, or both of flow directions within a flow region that exceed or meet a threshold.

3. The system of claim 1 further comprising concurrently displaying a histogram of flow direction within the identified flow region.

4. The system of claim 3 , wherein the histogram is a 2D or a 3D histogram of flow directions and flow direction velocities within.

5. A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising executable instructions, which when executed cause a processor of a medical imaging system to display ultrasound imaging data by:

generating an image from ultrasound data representative of a bodily structure and fluid flowing within the bodily structure;

estimating axial and lateral velocity components of the fluid flowing within the bodily structure;

determining a plurality of flow directions within the image based on the axial and lateral velocity components;

differentially encoding the flow directions based on flow direction angle to generate a flow direction map;

performing, by a processor, statistical analysis on the flow directions, and wherein a region of interest (ROI) is automatically selected by the processor based on the statistical analysis indicative of the ROI having flow variability; and

displaying the image including the bodily structure overlaid with the flow direction map.

6. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 5 , further comprising receiving the selection of the ROI within a flow region and displaying additional quantitative information about the flow directions within the ROI.

7. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 6 , wherein the displaying additional quantitative information about the flow directions within the ROI comprises displaying a histogram of the flow directions within the ROI or a statistical measure of variability of the flow directions within the ROI.

8. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 6 , wherein the displaying additional quantitative information comprises displaying a histogram displaying at least two of the flow directions for pixels within the ROI, velocity magnitudes for pixels within the ROI, and a statistical measure of variability of either the flow directions or velocity magnitudes associated with the ROI.

9. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 6 , further comprising displaying, concurrently with the image, another image including a B-mode background image overlaid with vector map of the axial and lateral velocity components.