JP3262169B2 - Ultrasound diagnostic equipment - Google Patents

Description

Description: 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 having a dynamic filter circuit.

[Conventional technology]

A dynamic filter circuit in an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus has a characteristic that when an ultrasonic wave having a certain frequency band is transmitted into a living body, the frequency band of the echo signal is reduced in accordance with the depth at which the echo occurred. Therefore, control is performed so that the frequency band is reduced with time after the start of reception provided in the receiving circuit.

And, in order to improve the S / N ratio in the depth direction, this dynamic filter circuit is close to a sawtooth waveform to a variable varicap capacitor of a so-called LC resonator so as to set the vicinity of the body surface to a maximum high frequency band. It is configured to add a voltage curve (see Japanese Patent Publication No. 62-2409).

[Problems to be solved by the invention]

However, in the above-mentioned conventional technology, it is convenient to efficiently display an ultrasonic tomographic image from near to deep within one screen, but from the clinical standpoint, it is particularly preferable to display an ultrasonic tomographic image in one screen. In the case of wanting to watch the difference from the normal part in the heterogeneous part in the liver just above the phrenic abdomen,
It has been found that it is very difficult to discriminate the difference by a method in which the reception frequency band and the resonance frequency are changed with a uniform coefficient from the vicinity to the deep part.

The reason for this phenomenon is that the depth of the foreign site (penetration), the reactivity of the used ultrasonic frequency of the foreign site (tissue characterization), and the tissue characterization of the organ surrounding the foreign site This is because they are affected by the characteristics and the difference in the actual sound speed.

Therefore, the above-mentioned problems cannot be solved unless the case and the filter characteristics according to the case are set.

Therefore, the present invention has been made in view of such circumstances, and the object of the present invention is not only in a very simple configuration, but also in a gazing site such as the above-described heterogeneous portion. It is another object of the present invention to provide an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus capable of easily determining the position and obtaining a large amount of information from the gaze area.

[Means for solving the problem]

The outline of a typical invention disclosed in the present application is briefly described as follows.

In an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus for generating an ultrasonic image of the living body from an echo signal obtained by transmitting an ultrasonic wave into the living body and displaying an image on a display unit, a unit for setting a region of interest in the ultrasonic image; A filter circuit capable of setting a plurality of reception frequencies of the echo signal, and receiving and changing the reception frequency of the filter circuit to a characteristic different from that outside the region of interest for each image when receiving and processing the echo signal from within the region of interest. Means for processing, and associates the ultrasonic image received at a reception frequency having a characteristic different from that of the outside of the region of interest with the reception frequency at which the ultrasonic image was received, and the reception processing was performed at the plurality of different reception frequencies. Means for simultaneously displaying each ultrasonic image and a reception frequency associated with each ultrasonic image on the display means.

[Action]

In the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus configured as described above, first, a region of interest to be watched clinically is set on the ultrasonic image displayed on the display unit. Next, when receiving and processing an echo signal from within the region of interest, the reception frequency of the filter circuit is changed to a characteristic different from that outside the region of interest in image units, and the reception process is performed. The reception frequency for the echo signal from the normal part and the heterogeneous part, that is, the frequency characteristic at the time of acquiring the echo signal can be changed for each image to be acquired for each ultrasonic image. -The ultrasonic image is measured using the difference in the characterization as a parameter. Therefore, by performing multiple measurements of the ultrasonic image with the difference in the tissue characterization between the normal region and the heterogeneous region as a parameter, and simultaneously displaying a plurality of obtained ultrasonic images, for example, from the vicinity to the deep portion Conventional ultrasound measurement that changes the receiving frequency with a uniform coefficient can obtain an image that makes it easy to determine the difference between a normal part and a heterogeneous part, which is extremely difficult to determine. Thus, an image in which the region of interest is clearly imaged can be immediately determined, and thereby accurate diagnosis can be performed.

Further, since other information regarding the injection site can be obtained even in an image of another frequency band that is simultaneously imaged, much information can be obtained regarding the gaze site.

Such a configuration allows the filter circuit to collect ultrasonic images with a plurality of preset reception frequency characteristics only for the region of interest set by the means for setting the region of interest, and Since the main part is to simultaneously display images, the configuration is not particularly complicated, and a simple configuration is sufficient.

(Example of the invention)

Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be specifically described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a circuit block diagram showing one embodiment of an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to the present invention.

In the figure, an output from an ultrasonic probe 1 is input to a delay circuit 2. The ultrasonic probe 1 is n
The ultrasonic signals received from the respective ultrasonic transducers are delayed by the delay circuit 2 in accordance with the set focus.

Each delay signal output from the delay circuit 2 is added to an adder 3
, And each of the delay signals is added by the adding circuit 3.

Here, as the phasing accuracy of the delay circuit 2 is higher, the addition circuit 3
At the same time.

Next, the output from the adding circuit 3 is input to the logarithmic amplifier 4. The logarithmic amplifier 4 performs logarithmic amplification from a small signal of an ultrasonic reception signal to, for example, a reflected echo having a high intensity from a diaphragm so that a luminance level of a TV monitor described later is not saturated. It is.

The output from the logarithmic amplifier 4 is input to a digital scan converter 6 via a video amplifier circuit 5. The video amplifying circuit 5 performs an enhancement process and an AGC process, and is thereby output to the digital scan converter 6 as an ultrasonic final output signal.

Although not shown, the digital scan converter 6 includes an A / D converter for converting an output from the video amplification circuit 5 into a digital signal, a buffer memory for storing output information from the A / D converter, and a main memory. ,
A D / A converter converts the output from the memory into an analog signal.

Usually, the output from the digital scan converter 6 is output as a TV signal to a TV monitor (not shown) as it is.

However, in this embodiment, the TV signal is transmitted to the TV except when necessary.
The data is not output to the monitor but is stored in the spare memory 7.

The spare memory 7 is called a cine memory or a multi-memory, and can store image information of about 16 to 128 images.

On the other hand, the output from the adder 3 is superimposed on the output from the LC resonance circuit 8 and input to the logarithmic amplifier 4. The LC resonance circuit 8 can be controlled from the outside as described later, and includes an inductance and a varicap capacitor connected in parallel with the inductance. As described above, the external control of the LC resonance circuit is performed by changing the capacity of the varicap capacitor by an externally applied voltage.

The external additional voltage of the varicap capacitor is set by the following circuit.

That is, there is a control EPROM 12 and this control EPROM 12
Includes probe frequency, probe shape, region of interest setting, automatic step up, 1 frame END, shallow section only,
A signal corresponding to a deep portion only, a region of interest variable sequentially, or the like is input.

Such a signal is input from a keyboard (not shown), and the operator can arbitrarily input the signal in accordance with a diagnosis situation.

Then, separately from each of the above inputs, the keyboard
As shown in FIG. 3, a dynamic filter circuit selection button 30 and a slide volume 31 are provided. The slide volume 31 is variable, for example, from 1 to 10 mm.
The frequency can be changed between Hz. In addition,
In the vicinity of the slide volume 31, a slide volume instruction lamp 32 for instructing the operation of the slide volume 31 is arranged.

The dynamic filter selection button 30 can be switched so that it can be set to, for example, six stages. Incidentally, such a switch may be, for example, a rotary switch.

The switching of each stage of the dynamic filter selection button 30 has the following functions.

1st stage Used in normal routines to improve overall S / N from near to deep. In this case, the signal indicating the first-stage switching is the control EPROM 12, the D / A
The filter curve shown in FIG. 2A is input to the LC resonance circuit 8 via the converter 11 and the buffer amplifier 10. Here, FIG. 2 (a) shows the depth on the horizontal axis and the center frequency on the vertical axis.

Second stage For example, it is switched when diagnosing a mammary gland, thyroid gland, or vascular, etc., particularly when diagnosing a nearby image with priority. The signal indicating this second-stage switching is a control EP
A filter curve shown in FIG. 2B is input to the LC resonance circuit 8 via the ROM 12, the D / A converter 11, and the buffer amplifier 10.

Third stage Used for diagnosis of hepatic hematoma directly above the diaphragm in abdominal diagnosis, etc.
This is switched when the so-called deep penetration (depth reach) is mainly used. The signal indicating the switching of the third stage is a control EPROM 12, a D / A converter 11, and a buffer amplifier.
The filter curve shown in FIG. 2C is input to the LC resonance circuit 8 through the line 10. The filter curve shown in FIG. 2 (c) enhances the penetration by emphasizing the lower frequency components in the deep part.

Fourth stage When a normal filter (first filter) finds an abnormal part on the TV monitor surface in the tomographic image, to examine in which frequency band the difference appears remarkably,
The frequency is searched for by the ポ Hz slide podium 31, and a fixed voltage corresponding to the slide volume 31 is output. The image change in this case is made over the entire image. The signal indicating the switching of the fourth stage is a control EPROM 12, a D / A converter 11,
The filter curve shown in FIG. 2D is input to the LC resonance circuit 8 via the buffer amplifier 10.

Fifth stage Switching is performed when only the region of interest is variably searched using the slide volume. The above-described fourth-stage switching is a case where the variable search is performed over the entire image, but the fifth-stage switching involves only the region of interest.

Sixth stage Automatically sets the frequency band of only the region of interest to 1ΜHz, for example.
Step changes at intervals of. In this case, the frequency is changed in eight steps up to 8 Hz.

The signal indicating the switching of the fifth stage is a control EPROM 12, D
The filter curves shown in FIG. 2 (e ₁ ) to FIG. 2 (e ₇ ) are automatically and sequentially generated via the / A converter 11 and the buffer amplifier 10.
The signal is input to the LC resonance circuit 8. As is clear from FIGS. 2 (e ₁ ) to 2 (e ₇ ), it can be seen that the resonance frequency changes only in the region of interest 20 only.

The interval between steps or the number of steps is not limited to the above, but in the present embodiment, the following description will be made with the above-described step interval and number of steps.

The image information obtained by automatically changing the frequency band as described above is sequentially stored in the spare memory 7.

Further, the change of the frequency band in the eighth stage (FIG. 2 (e ₇ ))
At the time when the eighth image information obtained by the above is stored in the spare memory 7, as shown in FIG.
The image information of the sheet is output to the TV monitor 40, and each image is
41 are arranged in parallel on the TV monitor 40 so as to be simultaneously imaged.

At this time, a histogram 42 is simultaneously displayed on each image 41 in the vicinity of the image 41 so as to correspond to each image.

FIG. 4 (a) is an explanatory diagram showing a case where the region of interest 42 is set on the TV monitor 40, for example, with a trackball or the like when the dynamic filter selection button 30 is switched to the sixth step.

As shown in FIG. 1, the histogram display circuit 14 uses the digital scan converter 6
And is stored in the spare memory 7 after the creation.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, a high-resolution image is formed in accordance with the depth of the gazing site to be clinically gazed, and a region of interest surrounding the gazing site is set on the image plane. By step-changing the frequency band in the region of interest by the dynamic filter circuit, it is possible to obtain reliable information on the gaze part in any of the frequency bands.

In addition, since the images obtained by the step change of the frequency band are simultaneously imaged, the operator can immediately judge the image in which the gazed part is clearly imaged by the contrast observation, and thereby an accurate diagnosis can be made. become able to.

Further, since other information on the gaze part can be obtained even in an image of another frequency band that is simultaneously imaged, much information on the gaze part can be obtained.

Such a configuration has a simple configuration without a particularly complicated configuration, since the main part is that a known dynamic filter circuit is step-changed and each image obtained by the step change is simultaneously imaged. Will be done.

In the present embodiment, the data to be input to the control EPROM 12 includes data that can be manually made by the operator, but the present invention is not limited to this and is not necessarily required.

In the present embodiment, the histogram 42 is simultaneously displayed on the TV monitor 40. However, the present invention is not limited to this and may be omitted.

〔The invention's effect〕

As is apparent from the above description, according to the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus of the present invention, despite the extremely simple configuration, it is possible to easily determine the presence of a heterogeneous portion, and moreover, a large number of such heterogeneous portions can be obtained. You will be able to obtain information.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block circuit diagram showing one embodiment of an ultrasonic tomographic apparatus according to the present invention. FIG. 2 is a graph showing a frequency from an LC resonance circuit in the operation of the ultrasonic tomographic apparatus according to the present invention. FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing switches and volumes provided on a keyboard, and FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing one mode of display on a TV monitor when the present invention is applied. In the figure, 7: spare memory, 8: LC resonance circuit, 10: buffer amplifier, 11: D / A converter, 12: EPROM for control, 30 ...
Dynamic filter selection button, 31 ... Slide volume.

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on front page (58) Field surveyed (Int.Cl. ⁷ , DB name) A61B 8/14 G01N 29/00

Claims (2)

(57) [Claims] An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus for generating an ultrasonic image of the living body from an echo signal obtained by transmitting an ultrasonic wave into the living body and displaying an image on a display means, wherein a region of interest is included in the ultrasonic image. Setting means, a filter circuit capable of setting a plurality of reception frequencies of the echo signal, and a reception frequency of the filter circuit different from that outside the region of interest in an image unit when receiving and processing an echo signal from within the region of interest. Means for performing reception processing by changing to a characteristic, and associating the reception-processed reception image with the reception-processed ultrasonic image and the reception image at a reception frequency having a characteristic different from that of the outside of the region of interest; Means for simultaneously displaying, on the display means, each ultrasonic image subjected to reception processing in step (a) and a reception frequency associated with each ultrasonic image. 2. The ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising: means for generating a histogram image for each of said ultrasonic images; and means for displaying said histogram image corresponding to the vicinity of each ultrasonic image. An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus, comprising: