JP2002177280A - Ultrasonic diagnostic system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an ultrasonic diagnostic device capable of easily taking out a data in the middle of processing it in a process to process an acquired ultrasonic receiving signal to form an ultrasonic picture image. SOLUTION: A plurality of signal extracting points (a)-(m) are provided in a route to carry out multistage processes to form the ultrasonic picture image for the ultrasonic wave received by an ultrasonic probe 16, one or a plural number of the actual signals in the middle of processing is or are extracted from the desired signal extracting points (a)-(m) by an extraction and selection circuit 62, it (or they) is (or are) supplied to a signal analysis part 14 and signal analysis is carried out.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an ultrasonic diagnostic system, and more particularly to processing of a received signal.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art The operation of a general ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus will be described. A received signal is obtained by transmitting and receiving ultrasonic waves. The received signal is converted into a digital signal by A / D conversion processing, and the received signal as the digital signal is detected and converted into a signal in a baseband region. The signal after the detection is input stepwise to a logarithmic compressor, low-pass filter, adjustment circuit for contrast and gain, peripheral emphasis circuit, inter-line correlation circuit, inter-frame correlation circuit, etc. An ultrasound image is formed based on the data that has passed. As an ultrasonic image, a B-mode image (two-dimensional tomographic image), an M-mode image (an image representing a time displacement of each part on a certain beamline) and the like are known.

[0003]

Conventionally, as described above, complicated processing has been performed on the received signal so that the tissue can be easily visually observed as an ultrasonic image.
However, after such complicated processing, the received echo cannot be evaluated as it is. That is, valuable information inherent in the echo may be lost during processing.

[0004] In particular, in the various research stages, as a means for performing new discovery and analysis, data being processed as described above is regarded as important, and there is a growing demand for easily obtaining such information.

Conventionally, in order to obtain such data (signal) during processing, a commercially available digital oscilloscope or the like is connected to a signal line on a desired module of a processing circuit, and a waveform is extracted. .

However, it is difficult to accurately contact a terminal of a digital oscilloscope with a desired position in a complicated processing circuit in order to acquire desired data during ultrasonic diagnosis, and a digital oscilloscope is used. Therefore, it is necessary to modify the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus. Also, depending on the modification method, there is a problem that the characteristic balance of the entire ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus is lost or noise is generated, so that desired data collection cannot be performed as expected.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned conventional problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide a method of processing an acquired ultrasonic reception signal for forming an ultrasonic image in the course of processing the data. It is an object of the present invention to provide an ultrasonic diagnostic system which can easily take out an ultrasonic diagnosis.

[0008]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In order to achieve the above object, the present invention relates to an ultrasonic wave transmitting and receiving apparatus, which performs ultrasonic signal transmission and multi-stage signal processing on an acquired received signal to form an ultrasonic image. In an acoustic diagnostic system, a plurality of signal extraction points set in a path of the multi-stage signal processing, and one or more signal extraction points selected from the signal extraction points, and signal extraction means for performing predetermined signal extraction And an output unit for outputting the extracted signal.

According to this configuration, a signal is extracted from a plurality of signal extraction points set in a multistage signal processing path. At this time, as the extracted signal, the actual data that is being processed is exactly extracted, so that the characteristic of the received signal in each processing stage can be extracted without loss. In addition, by setting signal extraction points in advance, it is possible to easily extract data during processing without adverse effects such as generation of noise on the ultrasonic diagnostic system.

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention is characterized in that, in the above configuration, an output from the output section is analyzed by a signal analyzing means and displayed on a display means.

Here, the display means may be a temporary display means using a TV monitor or the like, or a permanent display means using a printing device or the like.

According to this configuration, it is possible to analyze and display data during actual processing obtained from a plurality of signal extraction points set in a multistage signal processing path.

[0013] In order to achieve the above object, according to the present invention, in the above-mentioned configuration, the signal extraction means may include a step of adding a signal of interest among the received signals received by the plurality of ultrasonic transducers to a phase-adding process. Is extracted.

According to this configuration, since the reception signal for each ultrasonic transducer can be extracted, it is possible to easily analyze individual actual data.

In order to achieve the above object, according to the present invention, in the above-mentioned configuration, the signal extracting means performs a reduction adjustment of a gain other than a signal of interest among reception signals received by a plurality of ultrasonic transducers, It is characterized in that a signal of interest is extracted.

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention is characterized in that, in the above-mentioned configuration, the gain reduction adjustment is performed by setting gains other than the signal of interest to zero.

According to this configuration, it is possible to easily obtain a reception signal relating to a desired ultrasonic transducer even in a post-stage of multi-stage signal processing, for example, in post-processing such as phasing addition. An extraction can be performed.

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention is characterized in that, in the above configuration, the display means performs waveform display or image display of the received signal.

According to this configuration, signal analysis at a desired processing stage can be easily performed and displayed.

[0020]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Preferred embodiments of the present invention (hereinafter, referred to as embodiments) will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating the configuration of an ultrasonic diagnostic system 10 according to the present embodiment. In the ultrasonic diagnostic system 10 shown in FIG. 1, an example is shown in which a signal analyzing unit (signal analyzing means) 14 is connected to the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus 12 by a cable.
2, the signal analysis unit 14 may be incorporated.

The ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus 12 includes an ultrasonic probe 1 having a built-in ultrasonic transducer for actually transmitting and receiving ultrasonic waves.
6 is connected. In the ultrasonic probe 16, a plurality of (for example, n) ultrasonic transducers are arranged in, for example, an array, and a transmission circuit 18 (1) corresponding to each ultrasonic transducer is provided.
8-1 to 18-n) are connected. Therefore, each ultrasonic transducer can independently control transmission of ultrasonic waves. Each of the transmission circuits 18-1 to 18-n has a weighting circuit 20 (20) for adjusting the gain of the ultrasonic wave to be transmitted.
-1 to 20-n) are connected, and further, a transmission timing generation circuit 22 (22-1 to 22-n) for determining the transmission timing of the ultrasonic wave in each ultrasonic transducer is connected. Therefore, the ultrasonic waves transmitted from the respective ultrasonic transducers are individually subjected to transmission timing and gain adjustment, become one ultrasonic beam, and are irradiated on a living body, for example. When so-called electronic scanning is performed on the arrayed ultrasonic transducers, the ultrasonic beam can be scanned, and as a result, for example, a substantially fan-shaped scanning surface can be formed.

In the present embodiment, the transmission and reception of ultrasonic waves are performed by the same ultrasonic probe 16, and therefore, the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus 12 is provided with a switching circuit 24 for switching between transmission and reception. The multi-stage signal processing in the present embodiment is sequentially executed by the following circuits.

The ultrasonic receiving signal, which can be captured by the operation of the switching circuit 24, is amplified by a preamplifier 26 (26-1 to 26-n) for each ultrasonic transducer.
And amplified to a level at which signal processing is possible. Further, the amplified received signal is supplied to the A / D converter 28 (28-1 to 28-n) and is converted into a digital signal. Then, in order to give an appropriate directivity to the received signal, the received signal is provided with a delay circuit 30 (30-30) that gives an appropriate delay to the received signal from each ultrasonic transducer.
1 to 30n), and after passing through a weighting circuit 32 (32-1 to 32n) that performs gain adjustment for each received signal, is supplied to an addition circuit 34. The delay circuit and the adder circuit constitute a phasing adder that performs a so-called phasing addition process.

The signal processing circuit following the addition circuit 34 includes a variable bandpass filter circuit 36, a log amplifier circuit 38, a detection circuit 40, a gain processing circuit 42, an AGC processing circuit 44, a relief processing circuit 46, a contrast processing circuit 48, and a line correlation circuit. A processing circuit 50, a frame correlation processing circuit 52, a cine memory circuit 54, a coordinate conversion circuit 56, a gamma correction processing circuit 58, etc., in which the received signal supplied from the addition circuit 34 that has been subjected to addition processing is processed by each module. Thereby, an ultrasonic image such as a B-mode image or an M-mode image is formed. The formed ultrasonic image is displayed on the TV monitor 6.
0 is displayed and used for various diagnoses. In addition, the signal is extracted from each signal extraction point described later,
With respect to the signals and data subjected to the signal analysis, waveform display and image display are performed on the TV monitor 60. Of course, the raw data passed through without being subjected to signal analysis by the signal analysis unit 14 can be displayed on the TV monitor 60. Further, the waveform display and the image display may be recorded on a recording medium (not shown), printed by a printing device, presented, or stored.

A characteristic feature of the present embodiment is that a plurality of signal extraction points are set in a multi-stage signal processing path of a received signal, and one or a plurality of signal extraction points are selected from the signal extraction points and a predetermined signal extraction point is selected. Is extracted and output for the purpose of signal analysis and the like.

In the present embodiment, signal extraction points a to m from which a signal being processed can be extracted are provided in the path of the multi-stage signal processing, and signals are extracted from any of the signal extraction points a to m. This can be selected by an extraction selection circuit 62 as signal extraction means. In addition,
Since the signal extraction points a to l are signals subjected to the addition processing by the addition circuit 34, one signal can be extracted from each of the signal extraction points a to l. In the embodiment, for example, at the signal extraction point m, there are a number of signals (for example, n) corresponding to the number of arrangements of the ultrasonic transducers. It is necessary to select the signal of the ultrasonic transducer (the signal of which channel) to extract as the signal of interest. Therefore, in the present embodiment, a channel selection circuit 64 is provided. The signal from the desired ultrasonic transducer selected by the channel selection circuit 64 is supplied to the extraction selection circuit 62. As a result, the signal extracted from the signal extraction point m is also different from the other signal extraction points a to l.
Can be handled in the same way as

In this embodiment, the signal selection in the extraction selection circuit 62 and the signal selection in the channel selection circuit 64 are collectively managed by a signal selection control circuit 66, and determine which signal is to be sent to the signal analysis unit 14. However, collective management may be performed by the extraction selection circuit 62.

In this embodiment, the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus 1
The signal from the extraction selection circuit 62 passes through the connector 68 because the external signal analysis unit 14 is connected to the cable by a cable, but when the signal analysis unit 14 is built in the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus 12, , The signal from the extraction selection circuit 62 is directly supplied to the signal analysis unit 14.

In the present embodiment, the signal from the ultrasonic transducer to be supplied to the signal analyzer 14 with respect to the signal before the adder circuit 34 is determined by the channel selecting circuit 64 as described above. This can be performed by directly specifying the signal from the vibrator, but as another method, the weighting circuit 32 (32-1 to 32-n) is controlled and the gain of each signal is reduced and adjusted. You can also. For example, when it is desired to select a reception signal from the first ultrasonic transducer (channel 1), the weight of the weighting circuit 32-1 is set to 100%,
The weighting of the other weighting circuits 32-2 to 32-n is reduced and adjusted, for example, to 0%, so that the addition circuit 3
After four, only the received signal from the first ultrasonic transducer is obtained. FIG. 1 shows an example in which a weighting circuit necessary for giving directivity to a received signal is used for channel selection, but a dedicated weighting circuit may be separately provided.

The signal extraction points a to
The extracted signal obtained at 1 is, depending on the desired signal analysis,
The first to n-th received signals may be added and extracted in a state where various processes have been performed. As described above, the control of the weighting circuit 32 (32-1 to 32-n) may be performed. To cancel the signals other than the desired signal,
After the pseudo-pass through of No. 4 is performed, various processes may be performed and extracted. However, since the signal from one ultrasonic transducer is very weak, it is preferable that the signal processed by the signal analyzer 14 is a signal that has been subjected to substantial addition processing by the addition circuit 34. Therefore, the signal obtained from the signal extraction point m and the signal from one ultrasonic transducer selected by the operation of the weighting circuit 32 determine whether the ultrasonic transducer is operating normally or not. It is often used to check the characteristics of children. Of course, even a weak signal can be analyzed by the signal analyzer 14, so that
Needless to say, it can be effectively used for new discovery and analysis based on the ultrasonic reception signal.

FIG. 2 shows an example in which the extraction / selection circuit 62 extracts a signal being processed from the signal extraction point a, passes it through the signal analysis unit 14 as it is, supplies it to the TV monitor 60, and displays the raw data. is there. FIG. 3 shows that the signal in the middle of processing is extracted from the signal extraction point a in the extraction selection circuit 62, and the signal analysis unit 14 performs frequency attenuation analysis,
This is an example displayed on a V monitor 60. Further, FIG. 4 shows an example in which a signal being processed is extracted from the signal extraction point 1 in the extraction selection circuit 62, and histogram analysis is performed by the signal analysis unit 14. Of course, the number of signals extracted by the extraction selection circuit 62 does not need to be one, and a plurality of signals can be extracted. Analysis may be performed using a plurality of extracted signals in the process of processing, or the results of individual analysis may be displayed on the TV monitor 60 in parallel. Further, the image may be displayed in parallel with an ultrasonic image of a biological tissue or the like which is normally displayed. In such a case, each processing unit (for example,
Variable bandpass filter circuit 36 and log amplifier circuit 38
And a detection circuit 40), a path having a signal extraction point for extracting a signal being processed and a path for sending data to the next processing unit are required.

The signal analysis section 14 may store and hold a predetermined analysis program, or provide the necessary analysis program to the signal analysis section 14 using a storage medium or the like as appropriate. Is also good.

As described above, a plurality of signal extraction points are set in the multi-stage signal processing path of the received ultrasonic reception signal, and one or a plurality of signal extraction points are selected from the signal extraction points and output. By doing so, in the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus 12, it is possible to easily extract a reception signal at an arbitrary processing stage of the reception signal which is actually being processed, and the extracted actual data in the middle of the processing. Using (raw data), it is possible to perform signal analysis and to form and display an image different from the normally displayed ultrasonic image, and to use it as new analysis and diagnostic data. Become. In addition, since signals are selectively extracted from the signal extraction points provided in advance, there is no possibility that noise is mixed into the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus 12 or the system balance is reduced.

In the present embodiment, the configuration of the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus 12 in the ultrasonic diagnostic system 10 shown in FIG. 1 shows an example necessary for forming an ultrasonic image, The configuration of each unit that performs multi-stage processing can be changed as appropriate. A plurality of signal extraction points are set in each multi-stage signal processing path, and one or more signal extraction points are selected from the signal extraction points. However, if the configuration is such that the data is output and analyzed as needed, the same effect as that of the present embodiment can be obtained.

The analysis examples shown in FIGS. 2 to 4 are also examples, and it goes without saying that an analysis process suitable for a signal in the middle of the process extracted at a desired signal extraction point is performed. It can be used for further analysis.

[0037]

As described above, according to the present invention,
By setting a plurality of signal extraction points in the path of multi-stage signal processing of the received ultrasonic reception signal, by selecting one or more signal extraction points from the signal extraction points, and outputting,
Acquisition of data in the middle of various signal processing can be easily performed, and new discoveries and analyzes that cannot be obtained from normally formed ultrasonic images can be performed using the actual data (raw data). .

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an overall configuration of an ultrasonic diagnostic system according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a display example of a signal extracted from a signal extraction point a shown in FIG.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a display example when a signal analysis unit performs frequency attenuation analysis based on a signal extracted from a signal extraction point a shown in FIG.

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating a display example when histogram analysis is performed by a signal analysis unit based on a signal extracted from a signal extraction point 1 illustrated in FIG. 1;

[Explanation of symbols]

10 ultrasonic diagnostic system, 12 ultrasonic diagnostic device, 1
4. Signal analysis unit, 16 ultrasonic probe, 18 transmission circuit, 20 weighting circuit, 22 transmission timing generation circuit, 24 switching circuit, 26 preamplifier, 28A
/ D converter, 30 delay circuit, 32 weighting circuit, 3
4 Addition circuit, 36 Variable bandpass filter circuit, 38
Log amplifier circuit, 40 detection circuit, 42 gain processing circuit, 44 AGC processing circuit, 46 relief processing circuit, 4
8 contrast processing circuit, 50 line correlation processing circuit, 52 frame correlation processing circuit, 54 cine memory circuit, 56 coordinate conversion circuit, 58 gamma correction processing circuit, 60 TV monitor, 62 extraction selection circuit, 64 channel selection circuit, 66 signal selection Control circuit, 68 connectors, am signal extraction points.

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page F term (reference) 4C301 EE04 EE13 EE15 HH33 HH51 JB03 JB11 JB28 JB29 JB32 JB38 JB42 JB50 KK03 5J083 AA02 AB17 AC17 AC26 AD04 AE10 BB10 BC13 BD02 BE08 BE48 BE50 BE53 CB14 EA03

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. An ultrasonic diagnostic system for transmitting and receiving ultrasonic waves and performing multi-stage signal processing on an acquired reception signal to form an ultrasonic image, wherein a plurality of ultrasonic images are set in a path of the multi-stage signal processing. Signal extraction points, a signal extraction means for selecting one or more signal extraction points from the signal extraction points and extracting a predetermined signal, and an output unit for outputting the extracted signals. An ultrasonic diagnostic system characterized by the above-mentioned. 2. The ultrasonic diagnostic system according to claim 1, wherein an output from said output unit is analyzed by a signal analysis unit and displayed on a display unit. 3. The system according to claim 1, wherein the signal extracting unit extracts a signal of interest from the received signals received by the plurality of ultrasonic transducers before the phasing addition processing is performed. An ultrasonic diagnostic system, comprising: 4. The system according to claim 1, wherein said signal extracting means performs a reduction adjustment of a gain other than a signal of interest among reception signals received by the plurality of ultrasonic transducers, and An ultrasonic diagnostic system, characterized in that extraction of an ultrasonic wave is performed. 5. The ultrasonic diagnostic system according to claim 4, wherein the gain reduction adjustment sets a gain other than a signal of interest to zero. 6. The ultrasonic diagnostic system according to claim 2, wherein the display unit performs waveform display or image display of the received signal.