JP2001079002A - Ultrasonograph - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an ultrasonograph suitable for the continuous performance of an ultrasonic diagnosis of a subject for a long period of time. SOLUTION: This ultrasonograph is constituted of a portable unit 10 and a fitting type probe 12. The fitting type probe 12 is constituted of a fitting utensil as an armband, and a single vibrator. In the portable unit 10, a battery is provided. By the portable unit 10, e.g. a high intensity transient signal (instantaneous peak), which is observed in a power spectrum, can be monitored for a long period of time.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus, and more particularly, to an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus mounted on a subject.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art When a power spectrum is displayed based on an echo signal from a blood flow flowing through a blood vessel in the brain, occasionally,
A high-luminance part (instantaneous peak) may be observed.
Here, the power spectrum is a graph in which the horizontal axis is the time axis and the vertical axis is the speed axis, and the luminance corresponds to the power of the Doppler component. The high-brightness part observed in such a power spectrum is HITS (High Inten
sity Transient Signal). Clinically, this H
It is known that a person who has a higher frequency of ITS is more likely to have a cerebral infarction. However, its generation mechanism has many unknowns. In any case, HITS
Is estimated to indicate the potential risk of thrombus development in each individual.

Conventionally, when observing the frequency of HITS, an ultrasonic probe for intracerebral diagnosis is brought into contact with the temple near the head, and the ultrasonic probe transmits and receives ultrasonic pulses. A Doppler component (Doppler signal) corresponding to the blood flow motion information is extracted from the obtained reception signal, and the power spectrum is calculated by calculating the power of the Doppler component. Then, the power spectrum displayed on the screen is visually observed for a predetermined time (for example, 30 minutes), and the number of occurrences of the HITS is manually counted.

[0004]

However, in order to perform the above-described visual observation, it is necessary to keep the ultrasonic probe in contact with the body surface for a long time without changing its posture. The burden is very large. Also, the ultrasonic probe
It is connected via a cable to the main body of the diagnostic apparatus installed on the floor, and there is a restriction that the subject is forced to lie on a bed or sit on a chair for a long time.

[0005] The above-mentioned visual observation also imposes a great burden on the observer. Also, how high luminance is H
Regarding whether to consider ITS, there is a problem that there is a variation in criteria for each person, and it is difficult to obtain objective data.

On the other hand, in addition to the above-described measurement of HITS, ultrasonic diagnosis may be continuously performed over a long period of time. In such a case, it is desired to reduce the burden on the subject. I have.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned conventional problems, and has as its object to provide an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus suitable for continuously performing ultrasonic diagnosis of a subject over a long period of time. It is in.

[0008]

(1) In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides an ultrasonic vibrator for transmitting and receiving ultrasonic waves, and fixing the ultrasonic vibrator to a body surface of a subject. And a portable signal processing unit that incorporates a battery and executes the ultrasonic transmission / reception processing.

According to the above configuration, the probe is attached to the diagnostic site in the subject, and ultrasonic waves are transmitted and received by the ultrasonic vibrator. On the other hand, the signal processing unit is also carried by the subject. The signal processing unit is connected to the probe by a cable or the like or by a wireless method such as infrared communication. The signal processing unit has a built-in battery, so that ultrasonic diagnosis can be performed continuously or intermittently while being carried by the subject. The probe and signal processing unit have been downsized.
It is desirable to reduce the weight. Generally, it is not necessary to provide an image display for displaying an ultrasonic image in the signal processing unit, and it is desirable to use the signal processing unit as a unit dedicated to recording.

[0010] Preferably, the fixing member is a tape-shaped member wound around the subject. With such a member, the probe can be detachably attached to an arm, a foot, a neck, or the like.

Preferably, the fixing member is an adhesive tape attached to a surface of the subject. According to such an adhesive tape, the degree of freedom of the mounting position of the probe can be increased. Incidentally, it is desirable that the probe be of a disposable type.

Preferably, the probe forms a diffused ultrasonic beam. According to such a configuration, the positioning error of the ultrasonic beam with respect to the target can be enlarged, and even if the positioning of the probe is insufficient or the probe moves slightly, the accuracy of the ultrasonic measurement is greatly reduced. Can be avoided.

Preferably, a portion around the ultrasonic vibrator in the fixing member is constituted by an ultrasonic reflecting member.
According to such an ultrasonic reflecting member, it is possible to efficiently radiate an ultrasonic wave into a living body, and it is possible to enhance the reception sensitivity of an echo from the living body.

Preferably, the fixing member has an absorbing member for absorbing ultrasonic waves. Unnecessary ultrasonic waves can be absorbed by such an absorbing member, and multiple reflection can be prevented.

Preferably, the signal processing unit includes means for judging whether or not the mounted state of the probe is good based on a received signal. For example, when the subject removes the probe by himself / herself or when the probe comes off while sleeping, such a situation is automatically determined, and the reliability of measurement can be increased. When the mounting state becomes worse, the situation may be recorded and left, or an alarm may be generated.

Preferably, the signal processing unit supplies a transmission signal to the ultrasonic vibrator and processes a reception signal from the ultrasonic vibrator, and a power of the reception signal from the transmission / reception unit. Means for detecting an instantaneous peak based on the According to such a configuration, the above H
ITS can be measured over a long period of time.

Preferably, the signal processing unit includes a storage unit for storing the detection result of the instantaneous peak. This storage unit is desirably constituted by a portable data recording medium. The recorded data may be transmitted to the outside. The data is read into a data processing device such as a computer, and predetermined processing is performed on the data. Thereby, for example, a graph of data is displayed.

The probe may be provided with a positioning mark or the like so that the probe can be accurately mounted on the artery of the subject.

[0019]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows an example of the configuration of an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to the present invention.

The ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus of the present embodiment is roughly divided into a portable unit 10 as a signal processing unit and a wearable probe 12 for transmitting and receiving ultrasonic waves. Although the wearable probe 12 is connected to the portable unit 10 by the cable 14, it is also possible to connect them by infrared communication or the like. As will be described later, a battery or a rechargeable battery is built in the portable unit 10, and transmission power is supplied to the wearable probe 12 using the power supply. However, when the wearable probe 12 and the portable unit 10 are electrically connected using infrared communication or the like, it is desirable that the wearable probe 12 is also provided with a battery.

In the example shown in FIG. 1, the wearable probe 12 is detachably mounted on the arm of the subject. Needless to say, by appropriately changing the form of the wearable probe 12, the arrangement position thereof can be freely set. For example, if a method of fixing the ultrasonic vibrator on the body surface with an adhesive tape or the like is used, it is possible to easily attach the probe to, for example, a neck or the like.

It is desirable that the portable unit 10 is provided at a position that does not hinder the movement of the subject.
For example, it is detachably attached to a waist belt or the like. Incidentally, during sleep or the like, the portable unit 10 can be removed from the subject and placed on the bed.

FIG. 2 shows an example of the wearable probe 12. The mounting probe 12 is roughly divided into a mounting tool 16 constituting an arm band, and a vibrator 18 fixed to the mounting tool 16. Wearing equipment 16
Is made of a member such as urethane having some elasticity, and has a tape-like shape as a whole. A pair of planar fasteners 21 is provided on one end surface and the other end back surface of the mounting device 16, and the mounting device 16 can be reliably mounted on the subject by joining them.

Note that the mounting of the vibrator 18
It should be noted that the ultrasonic wave transmitting and receiving surface of the ultrasonic probe surely adheres to the surface of the living body. However, such a high pressure as in the measurement unit of the well-known blood pressure monitor is not required. If necessary, a coupling member such as acoustic jelly may be interposed between the wave transmitting / receiving surface of the vibrator 18 and the living body.

When the attachment 16 is made of a material such as urethane, it exerts a sound absorbing effect. That is, ultrasonic waves are radiated from the vibrator 18, and ultrasonic echoes from inside the living body are received by the vibrator 18. Unnecessary ultrasonic energy upon transmitting and receiving such ultrasonic waves is generated by the mounting device 16 itself. Absorbed. This has the advantage that the problem of multiple reflection of ultrasonic waves can be reduced. However, when such multiple reflections do not pose a significant problem, the mounting tool 16 can be made of a relatively hard member.

The vibrator 18 is fixedly arranged on the back surface 16B of the mounting tool 16. In this embodiment, the vibrator 18
Is composed of a single oscillator having a diameter of, for example, about 5 mm to 1 cm. A matching layer, an acoustic lens, or the like may be provided on the ultrasonic wave transmitting / receiving surface, but in this embodiment, a single oscillator is used as the oscillator 18 as it is. This is because when the wearable probe 12 is used as a disposable type, the wearable probe 12 is used.
This is for the purpose of reducing the cost as much as possible and at the same time minimizing the amount of waste material.

FIG. 3 shows the portable unit 10 shown in FIG.
Is shown. The portable unit 10 includes a transceiver 20, a signal processing unit 22, a recorder 24, and a battery 26.
And is constituted by. The transceiver 20 is electrically connected to the wearable probe 12 by a cable 14. The transmission signal from the transceiver 20 is transmitted to the wearable probe 12
, And a received signal from the oscillator 18 is input to the transceiver 20. After performing processing such as amplification on the received signal, the transceiver 20 outputs the received signal to the signal processing unit 22.

The signal processing section 22 has a circuit configuration according to the purpose of ultrasonic diagnosis. For example, when detecting Doppler information, it has circuits such as a quadrature detector and an autocorrelator. . According to such a circuit configuration, it is possible to continuously monitor the blood flow speed, and it is also possible to detect the HITS as described above. The detection result by the signal processing unit 22 is recorded in the recording unit 24. Here, the recording unit 24
Includes a medium such as a memory card, and by removing such a medium, data can be transferred to an external computer or the like.

A battery 26 is built in the portable unit 10, and power is supplied to each component by the battery 26. As shown in FIG. 3, the mobile unit 10 does not include an image processing circuit, an image display circuit, and the like that consume relatively large amounts of power. In addition, it is desirable to provide a relatively large battery 26. Of course, this battery 26
Can be configured as a rechargeable type.

FIG. 4 conceptually shows data recorded in the recorder 24. The recording unit 24 records, for example, a calculation result of the signal processing unit 22 at each time, for example, a count value. In this case, in addition to recording the detection result at each time as shown in FIG. 4, the time when a certain phenomenon occurs may be recorded. Various types of such recording formats can be adopted.

FIG. 5 shows a surface 16A of the mounting tool 16 shown in FIG. A vibrator 18 is provided on the surface 16A.
Mark 23 is drawn at a position corresponding to. By using such a mark 23, for example, it is possible to appropriately position the vibrator 18 on the artery of the arm. Therefore,
Even if the vibrator 18 is concealed by the mounting tool 16, the vibrator 18 can be accurately positioned.

FIG. 6 shows a wearable probe 1 for the subject.
2 is shown. Blood vessels 10 in the body
The position of the wearable probe 12 is adjusted so that the vibrator 18 is positioned on the blood vessel 102.

In the present embodiment, a single oscillator is used as the oscillator 18, and such a single oscillator has almost no focusing function of the ultrasonic beam, that is, the diffusion type ultrasonic beam 100 is used. It is formed. The blood vessel 102 can be held in the ultrasonic beam 100 even if there is some positioning error of the vibrator 18 due to such an expanded ultrasonic beam 100. As a result, it is possible to prevent a decrease in the accuracy of the ultrasonic diagnosis.

Incidentally, in place of the vibrator 18, it is possible to provide an array vibrator or the like which can electronically scan the ultrasonic beam, and it is also possible to provide a two-dimensional array vibrator.

FIG. 7 shows another example of the wearable probe. The mounting device 30 as an arm band includes the vibrator 3
Except for the peripheral portion of 2, a sound absorbing material 34 is provided. A reflector 36 made of hard plastic or the like is provided around the vibrator 32. According to such a reflector 36, it is possible to increase the acoustic power by reflecting the ultrasonic waves generated by the ultrasonic transducer 32 on the back side thereof. In the configuration shown in FIG. 7, the reflection member 36 also covers the back surface of the vibrator 32. Other configurations are the same as those shown in FIG.

FIG. 8 shows another configuration example of the portable unit. The portable unit 50 includes the transceiver 20
, A signal processing unit 51, a recorder 64, and a battery 26. In the signal processing unit 51, the received signal is input to the quadrature detector 52, and quadrature detection is performed on the received signal. The received signal is converted into a complex signal by this quadrature detection. Note that an all-motion filter for removing low-speed moving body components is provided at the last stage of the quadrature detector 52. The complex signal after quadrature detection is input to the power calculator 54 and the autocorrelator 58. The power calculator 54 is, for example, a circuit that calculates the power of the Doppler component by adding the square of the real part and the square of the imaginary part of the complex signal and calculating the square root of the added value.
In addition, it is also possible to use an FFT circuit or the like. The calculated power is input to the instantaneous peak calculator 56, and the instantaneous peak calculator 56 determines an instantaneous peak corresponding to the above-described HITS. Specifically, by comparing the calculated power with a predetermined first threshold, a power exceeding the first threshold is determined as an instantaneous peak. The instantaneous peak calculator 56 calculates the occurrence rate of the instantaneous peak per unit time and the number of occurrences of the instantaneous peak every fixed time, and outputs the calculation result to the recording control unit 66.

In this embodiment, a complex signal is input to the autocorrelator 58, and the autocorrelation of the complex signal is calculated. The complex signal as the autocorrelation result is input to the speed calculator 60, and the speed is calculated based on the autocorrelation result. The instantaneous peak calculator 56 calculates the instantaneous peak in consideration of the speed as needed. For example, the instantaneous peak may be determined only when the power exceeds a predetermined first threshold value and a predetermined speed condition range is satisfied.

The error judging unit 62 is a circuit for judging whether the mounted state of the mountable probe 12 is good or not based on the power calculated by the power calculator 54. For example, when the adhesion between the vibrator 18 and the living body in the wearable probe 12 decreases, the absolute level of the power decreases.
Therefore, the error determiner 62 compares the power or the average value of the power with the second threshold value, and determines an error when the power falls below the second threshold value. The result of the determination is output to the recording control unit 66.

The recording controller 66 is a circuit for recording the calculation result of the instantaneous peak and the error determination result in the memory card 68. The memory card 68 is detachable from the portable unit 10, and the memory card 68
Is removed from the portable unit 10 and set on a computer or the like, so that the data on the memory card 68 can be processed on the computer.

[0041]

As described above, according to the present invention,
An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus suitable for continuously performing ultrasonic diagnosis of a subject over a long period of time can be provided.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a conceptual diagram showing a portable unit and a wearable probe constituting an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating an example of a wearable probe.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of a portable unit.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing the contents of data recorded on a recorder.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing the surface of the wearing tool.

FIG. 6 is a cross-sectional view showing a mounting state of the mounting tool.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing another example of a wearable probe.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram showing another example of the portable unit.

[Explanation of symbols]

Reference Signs List 10 portable unit, 12 wearing probe, 16 wearing tool, 16B back surface, 18 vibrator, 20 transceiver,
22 signal processor, 24 recorder, 26 batteries.

Claims (9)

[Claims] An ultrasonic transducer for transmitting and receiving ultrasonic waves,
A probe having a fixing member for fixing the ultrasonic vibrator to the body surface of the subject; and a portable signal processing unit that incorporates a battery and executes transmission and reception processing of the ultrasonic wave. Ultrasound diagnostic device characterized by the following. 2. The ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the fixing member is a tape-shaped member wound around a subject. 3. The ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the fixing member is an adhesive tape attached to a surface of the subject. 4. The ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the probe forms a diffused ultrasonic beam. 5. An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a peripheral portion of said ultrasonic transducer in said fixing member is constituted by an ultrasonic reflecting member. 6. The ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the fixing member has an absorbing member that absorbs ultrasonic waves. 7. The ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said signal processing unit includes means for judging whether or not said probe is mounted properly based on a received signal. 8. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the signal processing unit supplies a transmission signal to the ultrasonic vibrator and processes a reception signal from the ultrasonic vibrator; Means for detecting an instantaneous peak based on the power of the received signal from the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus. 9. The ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to claim 8, wherein the signal processing unit includes a storage unit that stores a detection result of the instantaneous peak.