MEDICAL ULTRASONIC IMAGING METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR SPATIAL COMPOUNDING

A medical imaging system provides increased detectability of targets such as membranes, tendons, muscle fibers and biopsy needles that have strong directional responses. This improved result is achieved by compounding multiple images generated by using only one or two transducer firings per ultrasound line. Speckle variance is also reduced as the result of spatial compounding, and this reduction improves the detectability of soft-tissue lesions.