CN106963379B

CN106963379B - Terahertz imaging system

Info

Publication number: CN106963379B
Application number: CN201710162178.XA
Authority: CN
Inventors: 陈诚; 刘小艳; 刘鹤莺
Original assignee: First Affiliated Hospital of TMMU
Current assignee: First Affiliated Hospital of TMMU
Priority date: 2017-03-17
Filing date: 2017-03-17
Publication date: 2020-08-21
Anticipated expiration: 2037-03-17
Also published as: CN106963379A

Abstract

The invention relates to the technical field of imaging, in particular to a terahertz imaging system which comprises a terahertz transmitter used for generating terahertz waves, wherein a first receiver and a second receiver are used for receiving reflected terahertz waves with pathological change tissue images, the first receiver and the second receiver transmit signals to a signal processing device, the second receiver is positioned in the direction towards an outlet of a vaginal dilator, the second receiver is electrically connected with a motor capable of controlling the second receiver to rotate, a groove is formed in the outer wall of the vaginal dilator, and a liquid placing pipe capable of containing acetic acid is detachably arranged in the groove. According to the invention, the terahertz wave is imaged by utilizing the strong penetrating power of the terahertz wave after being reflected by the part to be detected, hidden lesions at the part to be detected can be shown, diagnosis errors caused by only irradiating the epidermis are avoided, after the lesions are found in the reflected terahertz wave imaging image, liquid in the liquid-placing tube is extruded to further show the lesions, and damage caused when the liquid is used at the healthy part to be detected is avoided.

Description

Terahertz imaging system

Technical Field

The invention relates to the technical field of imaging, in particular to a terahertz imaging system.

Background

Terahertz imaging is favored in recent years as a novel imaging mode for medical applications, and terahertz waves have better penetration ability than infrared light and lower photon energy than X-rays, so that terahertz imaging has great advantages in the aspect of in vivo detection. The terahertz wave has the advantages of high sensitivity to intercellular water, no harm to human body, high spatial resolution up to dozens of microns, capability of clearly presenting internal images of pathological change tissues, clear observation of pathological changes of some pathological change tissues and convenience for diagnosis of doctors compared with other electromagnetic waves.

However, the existing terahertz imaging system is only used for detecting brain diseases in clinical medicine, and cannot well exert the advantages of terahertz waves. Especially in the gynecological disease diagnosis, the advantage of terahertz waves can be theoretically used for noninvasive diagnosis. However, due to the particularity of the vaginal environment, the existing terahertz imaging system cannot adapt to the weak acidic environment.

In the current gynecological disease diagnosis, the vaginal examination is an important item in gynecological routine examination, and the vaginal examination can be used for examining gynecological diseases such as vaginitis, cervical erosion, cervical polyp, cervical intraepithelial neoplasia, cervical cancer and the like. At present, the colposcopy mainly uses an electronic colposcope, the electronic colposcope can magnify an observed vagina image for a doctor to view, and the doctor can find the pathological changes invisible to the naked eye through the magnified vagina image.

The existing electronic colposcope mainly comprises a colposcope body, a charging jack, a photographing/stop-motion key and an LED light-emitting device, wherein the colposcope body is provided with a colposcope expander, the LED light-emitting device is embedded and installed in the colposcope body, and the right side of the LED light-emitting device is provided with a gynecological examination mirror. But the gynecological visual inspection mirror illuminates the vaginal epidermis from the opened position of the vaginal dilator, and the limited opening of the vaginal dilator leads to the limited visual field for illuminating the vaginal wall.

Therefore, it is urgently needed to develop a terahertz imaging system specially used for vaginal detection.

Disclosure of Invention

The invention aims to provide a terahertz imaging system capable of imaging the hidden lesion of the vagina without damaging a human body, and aims to provide an imaging method of the terahertz imaging system capable of imaging the hidden lesion of the vagina.

The terahertz imaging system comprises a reflecting plate and a terahertz transmitter used for generating terahertz waves, wherein an included angle between the reflecting plate and the horizontal direction of the terahertz waves transmitted by the terahertz transmitter is 135 degrees, a first receiver is arranged in the reflection direction of the terahertz waves, the first receiver is connected with a signal processing device used for imaging the terahertz waves through optical fibers, the output end of the signal processing device is electrically connected with an imaging display device, the terahertz imaging system further comprises a colposcope body and a colposcope expander arranged on the colposcope body, a second receiver is further arranged inside the colposcope body and connected to the input end of the signal processing device through optical fibers, the terahertz waves transmitted by the terahertz transmitter are transmitted into the colposcope body through the optical fibers, an adjusting device capable of adjusting the opening and closing of the colposcope expander is arranged on the colposcope expander, and the second receiver faces the direction of the export of the colposcope, the second receiver is electrically connected with a motor capable of controlling the second receiver to rotate, a groove is formed in the outer wall of the vaginal dilator, and a liquid containing pipe capable of containing liquid for displaying the lesion part is detachably arranged in the groove.

The principle of the scheme is as follows: when the terahertz imaging system is used, the vaginal dilator is pushed into the vagina lightly, the terahertz transmitter transmits terahertz waves, and the terahertz waves are reflected by the reflecting plate to form reflected waves to be incident to the first receiver; the transmitted wave penetrating through the reflecting plate irradiates into the vagina, the transmitted wave is incident to a second receiver after being reflected by the vaginal wall, the second receiver transmits the transmitted wave carrying the vagina image after being reflected to a signal processing device for processing and imaging, and the signal processing device transmits the vagina image to an imaging display device for displaying; in the process that the second receiver receives the reflected transmitted waves, the motor controls the second receiver to rotate, and because the vagina is not regular, the direction of the transmitted waves reflected by the vagina is not fixed, the second receiver cannot fixedly receive the transmitted waves reflected back in a single direction, so that the second receiver can receive the transmitted waves reflected by the vagina in all directions when rotating; when a doctor finds symptoms through a vagina image, the liquid placing tube is squeezed to spray liquid for further showing the shape of an affected part, so that the doctor can further judge the symptoms of a patient to confirm diagnosis; when the affected part needs to be treated, the liquid placing tube can be filled with a medicament for treatment, and when pathological changes are found, the spraying of the medicament for treatment can be completed during the examination; after the patient is tested, the applicator tube can be removed for replacement or sterilization.

The beneficial effect of this scheme is: 1. the terahertz wave has strong penetrating power, and can image the wave of the terahertz wave reflected by the part to be detected, show hidden lesions at the part to be detected, avoid diagnosis errors caused by only irradiating the epidermis, avoid damage to the human body and be safer; 2. in the prior art, the pathological changes are mainly displayed by a picture of a part to be detected and directly smearing acetic acid or iodine solution on the part to be detected, after the pathological changes are found in a reflected terahertz wave imaging image preliminarily, liquid in a liquid placing tube is squeezed out, so that the pathological changes are further displayed for accurate diagnosis, the situation that the accurate diagnosis of the pathological changes is observed by directly spraying liquid on the part to be detected in the prior art is avoided, and the damage to the healthy part to be detected due to the use of liquid on the healthy part to be detected is avoided; 3. the terahertz wave firstly shows the pathological changes, and then liquid is sprayed to further show the pathological changes, so that the diagnosis error caused by that only the part to be detected is directly and simply imaged and only the epidermis is irradiated in the prior art is avoided; 4. only take a picture to the part that expands the external genitals among the prior art, the field of vision is very limited, and this scheme is when examining pathological change, and motor control second receiver rotates, makes the second receiver can receive the terahertz that reflects back in all directions and transmits the ripples, and the image scope that obtains through reflected signal's formation of image is wider, can see the image of wider, discovers the pathological change more easily.

Further, the terahertz transmitter is a femtosecond laser.

Femtosecond is a unit of time, 1 femtosecond being only 1 part per billion of a second, femtosecond referring to the pulse duration. Because the periphery of the part to be detected is soft and not in a fixed form, the point of the pulse generated by the femtosecond laser, which is incident to the part to be detected, is different every time, the terahertz waves at different points can be reflected, and the detection area is increased.

Furthermore, the bottom of the groove is provided with a sliding groove, and a convex edge matched with the sliding groove is fixedly arranged on the liquid placing pipe.

The liquid placing tube can slide along the sliding groove, when a doctor observes that the vaginal wall has pathological changes, the position of the liquid placing tube can be adjusted, so that the liquid in the liquid placing tube can be sprayed out at different angles to be sprayed to different directions.

Furthermore, the surface of the liquid placing pipe is covered with an elastic film.

The film makes the liquid pipe put with expand the holistic surface of external more level and smooth, guarantees when promoting to put the liquid pipe and detect gynecological disease, puts the liquid pipe and can not cause the damage to the vagina wall.

Further, expand the external genitals for the external genitals that silica gel made, the tip that expands the external genitals is the arc structure.

The vagina dilator made of silica gel is softer, the vagina of a patient is prevented from being damaged by the steel vagina dilator, the end part of the vagina dilator with the arc-shaped structure is not provided with edges and corners, the vagina dilator is more attached to the skin, and the skin on the surface of the vagina is not easy to be damaged; the vaginal dilator tip of arc structure can make to put and jet out along the tangential direction of arcwall face when spraying acetic acid in the liquid pipe, can adjust the position of putting the liquid pipe according to different positions to must make and put liquid in the liquid pipe and spray with different spraying directions, conveniently spray in order to confirm the pathological change to the affected part.

An imaging method of a terahertz imaging system comprises the following steps:

s1, the terahertz emitter emits terahertz waves, the terahertz waves form reflected waves and transmitted waves transmitted through the reflecting plate after passing through the reflecting plate, the transmitted waves are transmitted to the part to be detected from the opening of the colposcope body, and the transmitted waves are reflected again by the part to be detected;

s2, the first receiver receives the reflected wave, and the second receiver receives the transmitted wave after being reflected again;

s3, the signal processing device receives the reflected wave and the reflected transmitted wave transmitted by the first receiver and the second receiver through the optical fiber, and the signal processing device processes and images the received reflected wave and the reflected transmitted wave from the first receiver and the second receiver respectively;

s4, the signal processing device transmits the processed terahertz waves to the imaging display device;

and S5, judging whether the part to be detected has a lesion or not through the image of the part to be detected on the imaging display device, and when the lesion of the part to be detected is found, pressing the liquid placing tube to extrude the liquid in the liquid placing tube to the part to be detected so as to enable the lesion to be shown.

The hidden epithelial tissue and the depth degree of pathological changes can be observed by utilizing terahertz waves, the pathological changes can be found in time, liquid is sprayed after the pathological changes are found to enable the pathological changes to be obvious, the examination condition is more accurate, the accuracy of vaginal examination is improved, and the change of the pathological conditions can be responded in time.

Drawings

FIG. 1 is a schematic structural diagram of an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a schematic view of the vaginal dilator of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a schematic view of the connection of the catheter and the vaginal dilator of FIG. 2;

fig. 4 is a schematic diagram of transmission and reception of terahertz waves according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Detailed Description

The present invention will be described in further detail with reference to the following embodiments.

Reference numerals in the drawings of the specification include: the colposcope comprises a colposcope body 1, a vaginal dilator 2, a terahertz transmitter 3, a first receiver 4, a signal processing device 5, a second receiver 6, an imaging display device 7, a reflecting plate 8, a part to be detected 9, an adjusting device 21, a liquid placing pipe 22, a channel 23, a film 24, a groove 25 and a motor 61.

As shown in fig. 1: colposcope body 1 one end is equipped with the vaginal speculum 2 that expands that silica gel made, the tip that expands vaginal speculum 2 is the arc structure, expand and be provided with adjusting device 21 on the vaginal speculum 2, the adjustable angle that opens when using of vaginal speculum 2 of expanding of adjusting device 21, colposcope body 1 is inside to be provided with second receiver 6, terahertz wave that the reflection is back can be received to second receiver 6, second receiver 6 is connected with motor 61, motor 61 control second receiver 6 rotates in order to receive terahertz wave that the not equidirectional reflection is back.

As shown in fig. 2 and 3: expand the tip of external genitals 2 and include two relative arcs, form the passageway 23 that can see the affected part between the arc, expand the external genitals 2 and be equipped with recess 25, the spout has been seted up to recess 25 bottom, can dismantle in the recess 25 and be provided with and put liquid pipe 22, put and be fixed with the bead that matches with the spout on the liquid pipe 22, expand and be provided with the elastic film 24 that covers and put liquid pipe 22 in the external periphery of external genitals 2.

As shown in fig. 4: the included angle between the reflecting plate 8 and the horizontal direction of the terahertz wave emitted by the terahertz emitter 3 is 135 degrees, the terahertz wave emitted by the terahertz emitter 3 is incident to the first receiver 4 through the reflected wave formed by the reflecting plate 8, the transmitted wave formed by penetrating through the reflecting plate 8 is incident to the part 9 to be detected, the transmitted wave is reflected to the second receiver 6 through the reflection of the part to be detected, the terahertz imaging device comprises a signal processing device 5 and an imaging display device 7, the output ends of the first receiver 4 and the second receiver 6 are connected to the signal processing device 5 through optical fibers, and the output end of the signal processing device 5 is connected to the imaging display device 7.

The terahertz waves are transmitted through the transmission waves formed by the reflection plate 8 and reflected by the vaginal wall, the reflected transmission waves are received by the second receiver, the motor controls the second receiver to rotate, the transmission waves are reflected and then dispersed to a plurality of directions due to the irregular shape of the vaginal wall, the rotating second receiver can receive the transmission waves reflected by the vagina in all directions, and the vaginal wall is imaged through the reflected transmission waves; when doctors find symptoms through vagina images, the liquid placing tube is squeezed to spray liquid for further showing the shape of an affected part, when the affected part needs to be treated, the liquid placing tube can be filled with medicine for treatment, and when pathological changes are found, the spraying of the medicine for treatment can be completed during the examination.

Only take a picture to the part that expands the external genitals among the prior art, the field of vision is very limited, and this scheme is when inspection pathological change, and motor control second receiver rotates, makes the second receiver can receive the reflected signal of all directions, and the image scope that obtains through reflected signal's formation of image is wider, can see wider image, discovers the pathological change more easily.

The method for imaging the part to be detected 9 by using the terahertz imaging system comprises the following steps:

s1, the terahertz emitter 3 emits terahertz waves, the terahertz waves form reflected waves and transmitted waves transmitted through the reflecting plate 8 after passing through the reflecting plate 8, the transmitted waves are transmitted to the part to be detected 9 from the opening of the vaginal dilator 2 through the colposcope body 1, and the transmitted waves are reflected again by the part to be detected 9;

s2, the first receiver 4 receives the reflected wave, and the second receiver 6 receives the transmitted wave after being reflected again;

s3, the signal processing device 5 receives the reflected wave and the reflected transmitted wave transmitted by the first receiver 4 and the second receiver 6 through the optical fiber, and the signal processing device 5 processes and images the reflected wave and the reflected transmitted wave received from the first receiver 4 and the second receiver 6 respectively;

s4, the signal processing device 5 transmits the processed terahertz waves to the imaging display device 7;

and S5, judging whether the part to be detected 9 has a lesion through the image of the part to be detected 9 on the imaging display device 7, and when the lesion of the part to be detected 9 is found, pressing the liquid placing tube 22 to push the liquid in the liquid placing tube 22 out of the part to be detected 9 to show the lesion.

In this embodiment, the portion 9 to be detected is a vaginal wall, the liquid in the liquid placement tube 22 may be acetic acid, the terahertz emitter 3 uses an existing terahertz emitter as a terahertz source, for example, a femtosecond laser may be used, the first receiver 4 and the second receiver 6 use existing ultrafast terahertz detectors with small volumes, the signal processing device 5 uses an existing terahertz spectrum imaging technology, a scanned vagina may be imaged by using a terahertz reflection spectrum of the vaginal wall, a two-dimensional information spectrum of amplitude and phase of the reflection spectrum is analyzed and processed to obtain an image, and the imaging display device 7 uses an existing medical display device to present the image, for example, a medical display of ann lixin may be used.

By utilizing the characteristic of good penetrability of the terahertz waves, the terahertz waves with the tissue lesion image are received, hidden lesions at the part 9 to be detected can be shown, and the condition that the lesions cannot be found only by irradiating the epidermis is avoided.

When pathological tissue is imaged, a pathological part is found from the image of terahertz wave imaging, and then liquid in the liquid placing tube 22 is sprayed to further show the pathological part, so that damage caused when the healthy part 9 to be detected directly uses liquid is avoided, pathological changes are more accurately shown, and misdiagnosis is avoided.

The foregoing is merely an example of the present invention and common general knowledge of known specific structures and features of the embodiments is not described herein in any greater detail. It should be noted that, for those skilled in the art, without departing from the structure of the present invention, several changes and modifications can be made, which should also be regarded as the protection scope of the present invention, and these will not affect the effect of the implementation of the present invention and the practicability of the patent. The scope of the claims of the present application shall be determined by the contents of the claims, and the description of the embodiments and the like in the specification shall be used to explain the contents of the claims.

Claims

1. A terahertz imaging system is characterized in that: the vaginal speculum comprises a terahertz transmitter for generating terahertz waves, wherein a reflecting plate is arranged in the horizontal direction in which the terahertz transmitter transmits the terahertz waves, the included angle between the reflecting plate and the horizontal direction is 135 degrees, a first receiver is arranged in the reflection direction of the terahertz waves, the first receiver is connected with a signal processing device for imaging the terahertz waves through an optical fiber, the output end of the signal processing device is electrically connected with an imaging display device, the vaginal speculum further comprises a colposcope body and a vaginal dilator arranged on the colposcope body, a second receiver is further arranged inside the colposcope body and connected to the input end of the signal processing device through the optical fiber, the terahertz waves transmitted by the terahertz transmitter are transmitted into the colposcope body through the optical fiber, an adjusting device capable of adjusting the opening and closing of the vaginal dilator is arranged on the vaginal dilator, and the second receiver faces the direction of the outlet of the vaginal dilator, the utility model discloses a vaginal wall, including vaginal wall, first receiver, second receiver electricity is connected with steerable second receiver pivoted motor, the tip that expands the vaginal wall is the arc structure, and the tip that expands the vaginal wall includes two relative arcs, forms the passageway that can see the affected part between the arc, be equipped with the recess on expanding the vaginal wall, can dismantle in the recess and be provided with the liquid pipe of putting that can hold liquid, the recess bottom is equipped with the spout, put and set firmly the bead that matches with the spout on the liquid pipe, put elastic film of liquid pipe surface covering, put the liquid pipe and can follow the spout and slide, when the doctor observes the vaginal wall and have pathological change, the adjustable angle of putting the liquid pipe makes the liquid of putting in the liquid pipe spout with different angles to spout in the position of difference.

2. The terahertz imaging system of claim 1, wherein: the terahertz transmitter is a femtosecond laser.

3. The terahertz imaging system of claim 1, wherein: the vaginal dilator is made of silica gel.