JP5226505B2 - Chemical injection device - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a medical fluid injector that is used together with a medical fluoroscopic imaging device and injects a chemical into a subject who captures a fluoroscopic image.

Currently, X-ray CT (Computed
Tomography) scanner, MRI (Magnetic)
Resonance Imaging), PET (Positron)
Emission Tomography) devices, ultrasonic diagnostic devices, CT angio devices, MRA (MR Angio) devices, and the like are known.

  When using a device as described above, it is often performed to inject a medical solution such as a contrast medium, a radioactive substance, and physiological saline into a subject in order to obtain a good fluoroscopic image or for other purposes. In addition, a chemical liquid injector for injecting these chemical liquids has been put into practical use. For example, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-174039 (Patent Document 1), a contrast medium injection syringe and a physiological saline injection syringe are mounted on an injection head, and a predetermined amount of contrast medium is injected by automatic control. After that, it is described that an operation of injecting physiological saline is performed. Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2004-298610 (Patent Document 2) describes a system in which a CT apparatus and an injection apparatus are linked. According to this system, imaging by the CT apparatus can be started after a lapse of time from the start of contrast agent injection until the contrast agent reaches the imaging region.

  However, it is very difficult to uniquely determine the time until the contrast medium reaches a predetermined site such as an organ because of individual differences. If a test injection is performed and a contrast agent arrival profile is obtained in advance, it is possible to link the contrast agent and the start of CT imaging almost automatically, but the contrast agent is wasted and the subject is exposed to exposure. The amount will also increase. When test injection is not performed, it is often difficult to predict an accurate rise curve of the CT value. For example, as shown in FIG. 6, in the case of injecting a contrast medium at a constant rate, if the CT value of the CT image exceeds a certain level, even if it is switched to physiological saline, Can maintain a sufficient CT value level. However, when an attempt is made to automatically or visually confirm the level that can be photographed at point A in FIG. 6 and start photographing, point B that actually starts photographing for preparation of a signal to the subject at the time of photographing. A slight delay occurs. When the contrast medium is switched from the contrast medium to the physiological saline in conjunction with the start of imaging, the contrast medium is unnecessarily injected during that time, and the subject is burdened.

Furthermore, it is necessary to deal with a device in which an imaging device and an injection device are not linked among currently used systems.
JP 2004-174039 A JP 2004-298610 A

  The present invention has been made to further improve the prior art, and is a chemical solution injection device capable of quickly switching from an ongoing injection stage to an arbitrary stage, for example, rapid switching from a contrast medium to physiological saline. It is an object of the present invention to provide a chemical liquid injection device capable of performing the above.

  The present invention relates to the following matters.

1. In the injection device for injecting at least a contrast medium as the chemical in test subjects,
(A) holding a plurality of syringes provided with a cylinder and a syringe piston, and independently, a plurality of piston drive mechanisms for moving the syringe piston relative to the cylinder ;
(B) a control mechanism for controlling the piston drive mechanism ;
(C) a trigger switch that generates a trigger signal when operated by an operator ;
Said control mechanism,
(B1) It is possible to set so that the chemical injection is performed in a plurality of stages ,
(B2) when the injection stage in progress has detected the previous SL trigger signal prior to completion according to the set conditions, without the need for cooperation with the medical imaging diagnostic apparatus, to stop the stage in the progress of the following An injection apparatus characterized by performing control to shift to an injection stage.

  2. 2. The injection apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the control mechanism includes means for setting conditions for each injection stage before the injection is started.

  3. The conditions of each injection stage include at least the specification of the piston drive mechanism driven among the plurality of piston drive mechanisms, and the pattern information of the injection end point and the injection speed within the injection period. The infusion device described.

4). The injection device according to any one of the above items 1 to 3, wherein the injection device can be equipped with a syringe containing a contrast medium and a syringe containing physiological saline .
5. An injection head having the plurality of piston drive mechanisms;
An injection control unit connected to the injection head;
5. The injection device according to any one of the above 1 to 4, wherein the trigger switch is provided in a hand unit connected to the injection control unit .
6). Furthermore, the injection apparatus in any one of said 1-5 provided with the cancellation switch for canceling the input from the said trigger switch .

  According to the injection device of the present invention, it is possible to quickly switch from an ongoing injection stage to an arbitrary stage. For example, according to one embodiment of the present invention, it is possible to quickly switch from a chemical solution such as a contrast medium to physiological saline at an arbitrary timing, thereby preventing unnecessary administration of the contrast medium and reducing the burden on the subject. Moreover, since an optimal timing can be selected, a better image can be obtained.

1 is a diagram illustrating an example of a fluoroscopic imaging system to which the present invention is applied. It is a perspective view which shows the external appearance of one example of an injection device. It is a perspective view which shows the state which equips the injection | pouring head of an injection device with a chemical | medical solution syringe. It is a flowchart which shows one example of the processing operation of a control mechanism. It is a figure which shows one example of the timing of injection | pouring of a contrast agent and physiological saline, and a change of CT value. It is a figure which shows the timing of injection of the contrast agent and physiological saline by the conventional system, and the change of CT value.

Explanation of symbols

100 Chemical solution injection device 101 Injection control unit 102 Cable 103 Main operation panel 104 Display unit 107 Hand unit 108 Cable 110 Injection head 111 Stand 112 Arm 113 Head body 114 Recess 130 Piston drive mechanism 200C, 200P Syringe 210 Cylinder 220 Piston 230 Connecting tube 300 CT scanner 301 scanner main body 302 control unit 1000 fluoroscopic imaging system

  An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. As shown in FIG. 1, the fluoroscopic imaging system 1000 includes a chemical liquid injection device 100 and a CT scanner 300 that is a fluoroscopic imaging device, and the chemical liquid injection device 100 and the CT scanner 300 are connected by wire. . The CT scanner 300 includes a scanner main body 301 and a control unit 302.

  For example, as shown in FIG. 2, the chemical injection device 100 has an injection head 110 mounted on the upper part of an arm 112 connected to a stand 111 and is connected to a separate injection control unit 101 by a cable 102. Yes. The injection control unit 101 includes a main operation panel 103, a display unit 104, a hand unit 107 connected by a cable 108, and the like. The control mechanism of the present invention includes these injection control unit 101, main operation panel 103, display unit 104, cable 108, hand unit 107 and the like.

  As shown in FIG. 3, the injection head 110 has two concave portions 114 formed on the upper surface of the head body 113 as a syringe holding mechanism, and the two syringes 200 </ b> C and 200 </ b> P are attached to the concave portion 114. The syringes 200 </ b> C and P have a cylinder 210 and a piston 220. For example, the syringe 200C is filled with a CT contrast agent as a chemical solution, and the syringe 200P is filled with physiological saline. The tips of the two syringes attached to the head main body 113 are connected by a connecting tube 230. In addition, the piston 220 of each syringe is pushed by the piston drive mechanism 130 that can move independently, so that the contrast agent, the physiological saline, and the both can be injected simultaneously.

  In the present application, the term “head” is also used to mean a single syringe holding / driving mechanism that can hold the syringe and advance and retreat the syringe piston to inject (and suck) a liquid medicine and the like. To do. In the double-head type in which two syringes as shown in FIG. 3 can be mounted, in this example, in order to distinguish the two heads, the head on which the contrast medium syringe is mounted is the A head and the physiological saline syringe is mounted. The head is called B head.

  As a general configuration such as a piston drive mechanism and a control mechanism, known configurations described in Patent Documents 1 and 2 can be adopted.

  In the present invention, in addition to such a known configuration, a trigger switch for generating a trigger signal is provided. The trigger switch may be provided at any location that can be operated immediately by the operator, but is preferably provided at the hand unit 107, for example.

  An example of the operation of an injection system with a trigger switch is shown below. As shown in the flowchart of FIG. 4, in step S1, the injection condition of the first stage (first phase) is input, and in the step S2, the injection condition of the second stage (second phase) is input. To do. For example, it is input from the main operation panel 103. As the condition input here, any input method may be adopted as long as the control mechanism can specify at least the injection rate (or injection rate pattern) and the injection end point. Actually, the type of chemical, the injection rate (or injection rate pattern), and the injection time (or injection amount) may be input. For example, as described in JP-A-2004-248734, the control mechanism Alternatively, data may be stored in advance, and the injection condition may be automatically calculated based on the subject's data such as the imaging region and weight.

As an example, the first stage and the second stage may have the following conditions:
First stage: contrast medium, 2.0 mL / second, injection time 30 seconds Second stage: Saline, 2.0 mL / second, injection time 30 seconds.

  After step S2, a start signal is received, and in step S3, the first-stage injection is started. As shown in FIG. 5, the CT value at the imaging region increases with time. The control mechanism, for example, forms a loop between steps S4 and S5 as shown in FIG. 4 to monitor the trigger signal and the first stage injection time (however, this monitoring algorithm uses trigger signal detection). Anything can be used as long as interrupt processing is possible. Therefore, when the CT value exceeds a predetermined value that can be imaged, the operator presses the trigger switch. When the trigger switch is pressed, a trigger signal is generated, and the control mechanism detects the trigger signal in step S4. Then, the process jumps to step S6, and the second-stage injection, that is, the contrast medium injection is immediately stopped as shown in FIG. 5, and the physiological saline injection is started.

  According to this method, the first stage is immediately switched to the second stage by observing the CT value without waiting for the injection time initially set (30 seconds; timeout time in FIG. 5) to elapse. be able to. For this reason, the contrast agent is not consumed unnecessarily, and the burden on the subject is reduced. In addition, artifacts due to an excessive increase in the CT value can be reduced.

  If the first stage time-out period is detected in step S5 without detecting the trigger signal, the process switches to the second stage injection. Furthermore, in one form of the present invention, it is also preferable to set the first stage as the end point when the CT value exceeds a preset value in conjunction with the fluoroscopic imaging apparatus. In this case, by setting the CT value slightly higher than the predetermined CT value that is expected to press the trigger switch, there is no risk of excessive administration of contrast medium even when the trigger switch is delayed. So safety is high. It is also preferable that the first stage injection time is set to be long on the premise that the trigger switch is used from the beginning. It is also preferable to set the injection time within a range that does not place an excessive burden on the subject.

In the system of the present invention, the control mechanism is a CPU (Central
Processing Unit), ROM (Read Only
Memory), RAM (Random Access
Memory), hardware such as an I / F (Interface) unit, and programs and resources stored in a hard disk or the like are operated as software in order to operate these hardware. Moreover, it has detection means, such as a sensor, as needed.

  In the present invention, the stage switching by the trigger switch can be applied to any switching, but the stage (phase) switching can be performed by the following protocol, for example. The injection is generalized and displayed by A head injection and B head injection. Typically, contrast injection is performed by A head, and physiological saline is injected by B head.

  The present invention can also be applied to switching between three or more injection stages. That is, the injection mechanism of the first stage, the second stage, the third stage or more is stored in the control mechanism, and when the trigger switch is pressed before each stage is completed, It can be configured to switch to this stage.

  For example, the following are mentioned as the first to third stage protocols.

  Tables 1 and 2 are examples of two-stage injection and three-stage injection, respectively, and various other protocols are possible.

  In the table, the end point of each injection stage is defined by time, but instead of time, a predetermined upper limit value (in the case of CT, the upper limit CT value) is set in conjunction with the fluoroscopic imaging device as described above. Also good.

  In the case of three or more stages, a trigger switch for shifting to the second stage injection and a trigger switch for shifting to the third stage injection can be provided separately. In this case, when the trigger switch for the third stage injection transition is pushed in the middle of the first stage, the third stage injection is started by skipping the second stage. Also, a switch dedicated to constant-speed injection of the B head can be provided.

  Furthermore, when the trigger switch is accidentally pressed, a cancel switch may be provided that cancels this immediately and restarts the immediately preceding injection.

Claims (6)

In the injection device for injecting at least a contrast medium as the chemical in test subjects,
(A) holding a plurality of syringes provided with a cylinder and a syringe piston, and independently, a plurality of piston drive mechanisms for moving the syringe piston relative to the cylinder ;
(B) a control mechanism for controlling the piston drive mechanism ;
(C) a trigger switch that generates a trigger signal when operated by an operator ;
Said control mechanism,
(B1) It is possible to set so that the chemical injection is performed in a plurality of stages ,
(B2) when the injection stage in progress has detected the previous SL trigger signal prior to completion according to the set conditions, without the need for cooperation with the medical imaging diagnostic apparatus, to stop the stage in the progress of the following An injection apparatus characterized by performing control to shift to an injection stage.   2. The injection apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the control mechanism includes means for setting conditions for each injection stage before the injection is started.   The condition of each injection step includes at least identification of a piston drive mechanism driven among a plurality of piston drive mechanisms, and pattern information of an injection end point and an injection speed within an injection period. 2. The injection device according to 2.   The injection device according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the injection device can be equipped with two syringes: a syringe containing a contrast medium and a syringe containing physiological saline. An injection head having the plurality of piston drive mechanisms;
An injection control unit connected to the injection head;
The injection device according to claim 1, wherein the trigger switch is provided in a hand unit connected to the injection control unit. further,
The injection device according to any one of claims 1 to 5, further comprising a cancel switch for canceling an input from the trigger switch.

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