CN212037481U - Portable microwave thermoacoustic and ultrasonic bimodal breast imaging device - Google Patents

Abstract

The utility model discloses a portable microwave thermoacoustic and ultrasonic bimodal breast imaging device, which comprises a computer; the computer is respectively connected with the miniaturized microwave source, the multi-channel data acquisition unit and the ultrasonic imaging module; the miniaturized microwave source is sequentially connected with the isolator and the handheld integrated probe; the handheld integrated probe is sequentially connected with the multi-channel data amplification unit and the multi-channel data acquisition unit; the ultrasonic imaging module is electrically connected with the handheld integrated probe through the reverse amplitude limiter. The utility model combines the miniaturized antenna and the ultrasonic transducer to form a hand-held integrated imaging probe, and a person to be detected can select various postures in the imaging process; and the detection scheme can realize full breast imaging and avoid the missed detection of the mammary gland close to the chest wall.

Description

Portable microwave thermoacoustic and ultrasonic bimodal breast imaging device

Technical Field

The utility model belongs to the technical field of mammary gland formation of image, concretely relates to portable microwave heat sound, supersound bimodal mammary gland image device.

Background

At present, microwave and ultrasonic imaging technologies are applied more in the field of breast imaging, particularly in the field of breast cancer detection. However, conventional ultrasound imaging techniques are mainly used for structural visualization, with poor contrast; microwave imaging techniques, while capable of reflecting functional information related to tissue dielectric properties, spatial resolution is affected by the microwave wavelength and penetration depth.

The microwave thermoacoustic imaging technology has the advantages of high contrast of microwave imaging and high resolution of ultrasonic imaging, and has recently become a research hotspot in the field of biomedical imaging. Its main application fields include cancer detection, foreign body detection, molecular imaging, etc., wherein: microwave thermoacoustic imaging is mainly sensitive to microwave absorption characteristics related to tissue water content and ion concentration; whereas ultrasound imaging is mainly sensitive to the acoustic impedance difference properties of tissue.

The microwave thermoacoustic imaging technology irradiates biological tissues by using pulse (usually tens to hundreds of nanoseconds) microwaves (with the frequency of 0.01 to 10 GHz), under the condition of meeting thermal limit and pressure limit, the irradiated tissues generate a thermoelastic effect due to the absorption of pulse microwave energy, an ultrasonic signal (namely, a microwave thermoacoustic signal) is generated by a mechanical process of expansion and compression, the generated microwave thermoacoustic signal carries related information of the microwave absorption characteristic of the biological tissues, an ultrasonic transducer is used for receiving the thermoacoustic signal, the signal is acquired by a data acquisition system, and finally image reconstruction is performed by means of an image reconstruction algorithm, so that the spatial distribution information of the microwave energy relative absorption of a sample can be obtained.

The existing microwave thermoacoustic/ultrasonic bimodal imaging technology mostly adopts a lying-down type detection scheme, a detected person is in a prone posture in the imaging process, and the microwave irradiates breast tissues from bottom to top; and then the thermoacoustic signals are acquired through the rotary scanning of the array ultrasonic transducer or the single ultrasonic transducer distributed around the breast. The scheme is difficult to carry out imaging detection on the breast part close to the chest wall, and is easy to cause missed diagnosis. Secondly, the volume of the general microwave thermoacoustic/ultrasonic dual-mode imaging system is large, the antenna and the ultrasonic transducer are used separately, and the operation is very inconvenient. Moreover, the conventional microwave thermoacoustic/ultrasonic bimodal imaging technology directly adopts a medical ultrasonic transducer to receive microwave thermoacoustic signals, and the ultrasonic transducers of the type mostly adopt linear array and convex array forms and have very limited receiving aperture angles, so that the thermoacoustic imaging quality is poor and the requirement of practical application is difficult to meet.

SUMMERY OF THE UTILITY MODEL

An object of the utility model is to provide a portable microwave thermoacoustic, supersound bimodal mammary gland image device to the aforesaid is not enough among the prior art to solve or improve foretell problem.

In order to achieve the purpose, the utility model adopts the technical proposal that:

a portable microwave thermoacoustic, ultrasonic bimodal breast imaging device comprises a computer; the computer is respectively connected with the miniaturized microwave source, the multi-channel data acquisition unit and the ultrasonic imaging module; the miniaturized microwave source is sequentially connected with the isolator and the handheld integrated probe; the handheld integrated probe is sequentially connected with the multi-channel data amplification unit and the multi-channel data acquisition unit; the ultrasonic imaging module is electrically connected with the handheld integrated probe through the reverse amplitude limiter.

Preferably, the hand-held integrated probe includes an ultrasound transducer and a miniaturized antenna connected to the ultrasound transducer.

Preferably, the ultrasonic transducer is connected with the multi-channel data amplifying unit and the multi-channel data acquisition unit; the miniaturized antenna is connected with the miniaturized microwave source.

Preferably, a section of semicircular ultrasonic transducer is added on two sides of the convex array or linear array ultrasonic transducer to form the airfoil array ultrasonic transducer for receiving thermoacoustic signals.

Preferably, the center frequency of the ultrasonic convex array or linear array in the handheld integrated probe is 3.5-8 MHz, the bandwidth is more than 60%, and the number of the array elements is at least: 64, 128, 256; the center frequency of a half-arc ultrasonic transducer used for microwave thermoacoustic imaging is 1.0-5.0 MHz, the bandwidth is more than 80%, and the number of array elements is at least: 128 and 256, and the arc radius is 60-90 mm.

Preferably, the center frequency of the miniaturized microwave source is 0.1-5.0 GHz, the pulse width is 10-1000 ns, the pulse peak power is 10-90 kW, and the pulse repetition frequency is 1-1000 Hz.

Preferably, the insertion loss of the isolator is less than 0.3dB, and the isolation is greater than 20 dB.

Preferably, the ultrasonic transducer in the ultrasonic imaging module is a linear array or a convex array; the ultrasonic transmitting device supports 128 channels with the maximum channel number, and can control and excite 2048 ultrasonic transducers to transmit ultrasonic signals through a multiplexing switch; the ultrasonic transmitting device supports the transmitting frequency of 0.1-20MHz and the maximum transmitting voltage of 200V.

The utility model provides a portable microwave heat sound, supersound bimodal mammary gland image device and method thereof has following beneficial effect:

the utility model combines the miniaturized antenna and the ultrasonic transducer to form a hand-held integrated imaging probe, and a person to be detected can select various postures (such as sitting posture, lying posture and the like) in the imaging process; and the detection scheme can realize full breast imaging and avoid the missed detection of the mammary gland close to the chest wall.

In addition, the volume of the microwave thermoacoustic/ultrasonic bimodal breast imaging system can be greatly reduced by miniaturizing the microwave source. Moreover, the design of the airfoil ultrasonic transducer is adopted, on the basis of ensuring the quality of traditional ultrasonic imaging, a small section of half-arc ultrasonic transducer is added on two sides of the ultrasonic transducer (convex array or linear array) for receiving thermoacoustic signals, so that the space acquisition degree of the thermoacoustic signals can be increased, and the thermoacoustic imaging image quality is further effectively improved.

Drawings

Fig. 1 is a schematic block diagram of a portable microwave thermoacoustic and ultrasound bimodal breast imaging device.

FIG. 2 is a schematic view of a hand-held integrated imaging probe of the portable microwave thermoacoustic and ultrasonic bimodal breast imaging device.

FIG. 3 is a schematic view of a portable microwave thermoacoustic, ultrasonic bimodal breast imaging device airfoil ultrasonic transducer.

3-1, a computer; 3-2, a miniaturized microwave source; 3-3, an isolator; 3-4, a handheld integrated probe; 3-5, a multi-channel data amplification unit; 3-6, a multi-channel data acquisition unit; 3-7, an inverse limiter; 3-8, an ultrasonic imaging module.

Detailed Description

The following description of the embodiments of the present invention is provided to facilitate the understanding of the present invention by those skilled in the art, but it should be understood that the present invention is not limited to the scope of the embodiments, and various changes may be made apparent to those skilled in the art within the spirit and scope of the present invention as defined and defined by the appended claims.

According to one embodiment of the application, referring to fig. 1, the portable microwave thermoacoustic and ultrasonic dual-mode breast imaging device and the method thereof comprise a miniaturized microwave source 3-2, a handheld integrated imaging probe 3-4, an ultrasonic imaging module 3-8 and a computer 3-1.

Wherein, the computer 3-1 is respectively connected with the miniaturized microwave source 3-2, the multi-channel data acquisition unit 3-6 and the ultrasonic imaging module 3-8; the miniaturized microwave source 3-2 is sequentially connected with the isolator 3-3 and the handheld integrated probe 3-4; the handheld integrated probe 3-4 is sequentially connected with the multi-channel data amplification unit 3-5 and the multi-channel data acquisition unit 3-6; the ultrasonic imaging module 3-8 is connected with the hand-held integrated probe 3-4 through the reverse amplitude limiter 3-7.

A miniaturized microwave source 3-2, wherein the center frequency is 0.1-5.0 GHz, the pulse width is 10-1000 ns, the pulse peak power is 10-90 kW, and the pulse repetition frequency is 1-1000 Hz; the microwave energy is coupled to the breast tissue to generate microwave thermoacoustic signals.

Referring to fig. 2, the handheld integrated imaging probe 3-4 adopts a miniaturized antenna, which can meet the requirements of small size, light weight, good directivity, etc. The microwave thermoacoustic and ultrasonic imaging signals are acquired by adopting an airfoil ultrasonic transducer, and the convex array or the linear array can ensure the image quality of the traditional ultrasonic imaging.

Referring to fig. 3, meanwhile, a small segment of semicircular ultrasonic transducer is added on both sides of the medical ultrasonic transducer (i.e. convex array or linear array) for receiving thermoacoustic signals, so that the spatial acquisition degree of the thermoacoustic signals can be increased, and the thermoacoustic imaging image quality can be further effectively improved.

In order to ensure the quality of ultrasonic imaging, the center frequency of an ultrasonic convex array or linear array is 3.5-8 MHz, the bandwidth is more than 60%, and the number of array elements is at least: 64, 128, 256; the center frequency of a half-arc ultrasonic transducer used for microwave thermoacoustic imaging is 1.0-5.0 MHz, the bandwidth is more than 80%, and the number of array elements is at least: 128 and 256, and the arc radius is 60-90 mm.

Besides, the miniaturized antenna is combined with the medical ultrasonic transducer to form a handheld integrated imaging probe 3-4, and a person to be detected can select various postures (such as sitting posture, lying posture and the like) in the imaging process; the detection scheme can realize full breast imaging and avoid missed detection of the mammary gland close to the chest wall. Secondly, the volume of the microwave thermoacoustic/ultrasonic bimodal breast imaging system can be greatly reduced by the miniaturized microwave source 3-2. Moreover, the design of the airfoil ultrasonic transducer is adopted, on the basis of ensuring the quality of traditional ultrasonic imaging, a small section of semi-circular ultrasonic transducer is added on two sides of the medical ultrasonic transducer (convex array or linear array) for receiving thermoacoustic signals, so that the space acquisition degree of the thermoacoustic signals can be increased, and the thermoacoustic imaging image quality is further effectively improved.

Referring to fig. 3, in order to ensure high fidelity of the thermoacoustic imaging result, omnidirectional detection of thermoacoustic signals is usually required; however, in practice, a concave array ultrasonic array probe (left image) is mostly used for detecting thermoacoustic signals. However, the concave array ultrasonic array probe of the type is difficult to be directly used for ultrasonic imaging due to the reasons of large wafer spacing and the like; therefore, the utility model designs an airfoil array ultrasonic array probe (right picture) that the more linear array ultrasonic array probe that will use in clinical practice directly combines with concave array ultrasonic array probe. The design can ensure the image quality of ultrasonic imaging and thermoacoustic imaging simultaneously, and can realize reliable superposition of ultrasonic images and thermoacoustic images.

The handheld integrated imaging probe 3-4 is used for coupling microwave energy to breast tissue, so that the breast tissue generates microwave thermoacoustic signals, receiving the microwave thermoacoustic signals and simultaneously receiving ultrasonic echo signals generated by a part to be detected of the breast;

the ultrasonic imaging module 3-8 is used for transmitting high-voltage electric pulse signals; the imaging mode is B mode, the used ultrasonic transducer is linear array or convex array, the ultrasonic transmitting device supports 128 channels with maximum channel number, but the ultrasonic transmitting device can control and excite 2048 channels of ultrasonic transducers to transmit ultrasonic signals through a multiplex switch; the ultrasonic transmitting device supports the transmitting frequency of 0.1-20MHz and the maximum transmitting voltage of 200V.

And the computer 3-1 is used for receiving and processing the microwave thermoacoustic signals and the ultrasonic echo signals to obtain microwave thermoacoustic images and ultrasonic images of the mammary gland, and superposing the microwave thermoacoustic images and the ultrasonic images by adopting a delayed superposition image reconstruction algorithm to realize the bimodal imaging of the mammary gland.

The computer 3-1 controls the miniaturized microwave source 3-2 to emit pulse microwaves, and the pulse microwaves couple microwave energy to breast tissues through an antenna in the integrated probe, so that the breast tissues generate microwave thermoacoustic signals; the computer 3-1 simultaneously controls the multi-channel data amplifying unit 3-5 and the multi-channel data acquisition unit 3-6 to work, and receives and stores microwave thermoacoustic signals collected by the concave array ultrasonic transducer; and after a certain time delay, controlling the ultrasonic imaging modules 3-8 to work, and transmitting ultrasonic signals and receiving ultrasonic echo signals by the linear array ultrasonic transducer. All data are transmitted to the computer 3-1 for post-processing.

In the process, the concave array ultrasonic transducer in the airfoil surface ultrasonic transducer is used for receiving microwave thermoacoustic signals; the linear array ultrasonic transducer is used for transmitting and receiving ultrasonic signals of ultrasonic imaging. The concave array for receiving microwave thermoacoustic signals and the linear array for ultrasonic imaging are relatively fixed in position; therefore, the microwave thermoacoustic image and the ultrasonic image can be directly superposed, and the breast bimodal imaging detection can be realized without subsequent registration treatment.

The number of channels 3-5 of the multi-channel data amplification unit is at least as follows: 128 channels and 256 channels, wherein the final channel number is consistent with the number of the array element channels of the semicircular-arc ultrasonic transducer used for microwave thermoacoustic imaging; the multiple of the amplifier is 54-100 dB, the bandwidth is 0.01-10 MHz, the front end has a voltage limiting circuit, the voltage limiting range is as follows: -5- + 5V.

The number of channels 3-6 of the multi-channel data acquisition unit is at least as follows: 128 channels and 256 channels, wherein the final channel number is consistent with the number of the array element channels of the semicircular-arc ultrasonic transducer used for microwave thermoacoustic imaging; the sampling rate is 30-50M/S, the acquisition precision is 10-16 Bit, the sampling anti-aliasing filtering low-pass cut-off frequency is 20MHz, and the single-channel data storage depth is not less than 10K.

The utility model discloses a theory of operation does:

in the microwave thermoacoustic imaging process: the computer 3-1 controls the miniaturized microwave source 3-2 to emit pulse microwaves, and pulse microwave signals are transmitted to the handheld integrated probe 3-4 after passing through the isolator 3-3; the hand-held integrated probe 3-4 receives microwave thermoacoustic signals, transmits the signals to the multi-channel data amplification unit 3-5 for amplification, and then is subjected to A/D conversion by the multi-channel data acquisition unit 3-6 and then is stored in the computer 3-1 for image reconstruction.

In the ultrasonic imaging process: the computer 3-1 controls the ultrasonic imaging module 3-8 to emit high-voltage electric pulse signals, the high-voltage electric pulse signals are transmitted to the handheld integrated imaging probe 3-4 after passing through the reverse amplitude limiter 3-7, meanwhile, the handheld integrated imaging probe 3-4 receives ultrasonic echo signals, the ultrasonic echo signals are transmitted to the ultrasonic imaging module 3-8 through the reverse amplitude limiter 3-7 to be subjected to A/D conversion, and then the ultrasonic echo signals are stored in the computer 3-1 to be subjected to image reconstruction.

The computer 3-1 receives and processes the returned microwave thermoacoustic signals and ultrasonic echo signals, is used for receiving and processing the microwave thermoacoustic signals and the ultrasonic echo signals, obtains microwave thermoacoustic images by adopting a delayed superposition image reconstruction algorithm, and directly superposes the obtained mammary gland microwave thermoacoustic images and ultrasonic images to realize the bimodal imaging of mammary glands.

The utility model combines the miniaturized antenna and the ultrasonic transducer to form a hand-held integrated imaging probe 3-4, which can select various postures (such as sitting posture, lying posture, etc.) for a person to be detected in the imaging process; and the detection scheme can realize full breast imaging and avoid the missed detection of the mammary gland close to the chest wall.

In addition, the volume of the microwave thermoacoustic/ultrasonic bimodal breast imaging system can be greatly reduced by miniaturizing the microwave source 3-2. Moreover, the design of the airfoil ultrasonic transducer is adopted, on the basis of ensuring the quality of traditional ultrasonic imaging, a small section of half-arc ultrasonic transducer is added on two sides of the ultrasonic transducer (convex array or linear array) for receiving thermoacoustic signals, so that the space acquisition degree of the thermoacoustic signals can be increased, and the thermoacoustic imaging image quality is further effectively improved.

While the present invention has been described in detail with reference to the embodiments, the scope of the present invention should not be limited to the embodiments. Various modifications and changes may be made by those skilled in the art without inventive step within the scope of the appended claims.

Claims (8)

1. A portable microwave thermoacoustic and ultrasonic bimodal breast imaging device is characterized in that: comprises a computer; the computer is respectively connected with the miniaturized microwave source, the multi-channel data acquisition unit and the ultrasonic imaging module; the miniaturized microwave source is sequentially connected with the isolator and the handheld integrated probe; the handheld integrated probe is sequentially connected with the multi-channel data amplification unit and the multi-channel data acquisition unit; the ultrasonic imaging module is electrically connected with the handheld integrated probe through the reverse amplitude limiter.

2. The portable microwave thermoacoustic, ultrasound bimodal breast imaging device of claim 1, wherein: the handheld integrated probe comprises an ultrasonic transducer and a miniaturized antenna connected with the ultrasonic transducer.

3. The portable microwave thermoacoustic, ultrasound bimodal breast imaging device of claim 2, wherein: the ultrasonic transducer is connected with the multi-channel data amplifying unit and the multi-channel data acquisition unit; the miniaturized antenna is connected with the miniaturized microwave source.

4. The portable microwave thermoacoustic, ultrasound bimodal breast imaging device of claim 2, wherein: a section of semicircular ultrasonic transducer is added on two sides of the convex array or linear array ultrasonic transducer to form a wing array ultrasonic transducer for receiving thermoacoustic signals.

5. The portable microwave thermoacoustic, ultrasound bimodal breast imaging device of claim 4, wherein: the center frequency of an ultrasonic convex array or a linear array in the handheld integrated probe is 3.5-8 MHz, the bandwidth is more than 60%, and the number of array elements is at least: 64, 128, 256; the center frequency of a half-arc ultrasonic transducer used for microwave thermoacoustic imaging is 1.0-5.0 MHz, the bandwidth is more than 80%, and the number of array elements is at least: 128 and 256, and the arc radius is 60-90 mm.

6. The portable microwave thermoacoustic, ultrasound bimodal breast imaging device of claim 1, wherein: the center frequency of the miniaturized microwave source is 0.1-5.0 GHz, the pulse width is 10-1000 ns, the pulse peak power is 10-90 kW, and the pulse repetition frequency is 1-1000 Hz.

7. The portable microwave thermoacoustic, ultrasound bimodal breast imaging device of claim 1, wherein: the insertion loss of the isolator is less than 0.3dB, and the isolation is greater than 20 dB.

8. The portable microwave thermoacoustic, ultrasound bimodal breast imaging device of claim 1, wherein: the ultrasonic transducer in the ultrasonic imaging module is a linear array or a convex array; the ultrasonic transmitting device supports 128 channels with the maximum channel number, and can control and excite 2048 ultrasonic transducers to transmit ultrasonic signals through a multiplexing switch; the ultrasonic transmitting device supports the transmitting frequency of 0.1-20MHz and the maximum transmitting voltage of 200V.

Images