JP2644997B2 - Therapeutic applicator - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Object of the Invention] (Industrial application field) The present invention relates to an applicator for performing treatment by irradiating a living body with therapeutic energy from outside the body.

(Prior art) Ultrasonic waves or shock waves are excellent in deep penetration into the human body, energy condensing properties, etc., have no influence on the human body as compared with radiation, etc., and are treated, for example, by heating cancer. Recently, it has been used as a therapeutic energy for a hyperthermia device, a calculus crushing device that concentrates energy from outside the body on calculi inside the body, and crushes the calculus.

Since ultrasonic energy or shock waves hardly propagate in air, in order to efficiently transmit therapeutic energy from outside the living body to the body, a liquid (such as water) having an appropriate acoustic impedance is interposed between the living body and the transducer. The method is often used. In the treatment apparatus according to such a method, a method is generally used in which a thin film is stretched over an opening of a housing containing a treatment energy source for placing a patient in a water bath (bathtub) and filled with water as a closed system.

On the other hand, an effective method of treatment is to use a large-diameter applicator and set the treatment energy to be focused at the treatment target location. It is a way to get energy. Therefore, the operation of focusing the treatment target and the treatment energy source is always performed.

However, in the case of a system using a water tank, the size of the apparatus is increased, and the manufacturing cost is significantly increased. Also, in the operation of aligning the treatment target with the focal point of the treatment energy source, it is necessary to move the patient three-dimensionally in the water tank, and handling is inconvenient. On the other hand, the method using the water bag housing can be downsized compared to the water tank method, but the water bag housing must always be in close contact with the living body, and the water bag housing containing the therapeutic energy source and the therapeutic energy source In order to align the treatment target and the focus of the treatment energy source three-dimensionally, it is necessary to move the water bag housing along the surface of the living body. There was a problem that the degree of adhesion had to be constantly checked. In addition, in the depth direction, the water bag housing is pressed or released in the depth direction, so that it can be adjusted only up to the horizontal expansion, which is inconvenient for fine positioning.

(Problems to be Solved by the Invention) As described above, according to the prior art, a water bag housing containing a therapeutic energy source (for example, an ultrasonic vibrator) and a therapeutic energy source are integrated with each other. It was inconvenient to focus the therapeutic energy source on the treatment target while keeping the housing in close contact with the living body. Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a therapeutic applicator that is small and easy to handle.

[Configuration of the invention]

(Means for Solving the Problems) The present invention provides a water bag housing that comes into contact with a living body, a liquid put in the water bag housing, and a liquid provided in the water bag housing. Means for generating a treatment energy by forming a focal region; means for obtaining image information in the living body provided in the water bag housing; and generating the treatment energy with the water bag housing fixed. Movement control means for three-dimensionally moving the means for obtaining the image information or the means for obtaining the image information to an arbitrary position in the water bag housing, wherein the movement control means rotationally moves at least the means for obtaining the image information. It is characterized in that it is possible to cause

(Effect) The therapeutic energy source irradiates the treatment energy to the treatment target to perform treatment such as treatment of cancer or calculus crushing, and the positioning device has an effect of obtaining an image of a living body including the treatment target. The water bag housing has a function of efficiently irradiating the treatment energy from outside the living body to the inside of the living body, and is smaller and simpler than the water tank system. Means for moving the therapeutic energy source and the positioning device three-dimensionally within the water bag housing is such that the treatment energy is effectively collected on the treatment target while the water bag housing is in close contact with the living body, and the treatment target is raised. And the focus of the therapeutic energy source.

(Example) An example of the present invention will be described using an ultrasonic wave as an example as a treatment energy source.

FIG. 1 shows a configuration of an ultrasonic therapy applicator according to one embodiment of the present invention. A water bag housing 2 is provided in contact with the body surface of the living body 1, and a group of ultrasonic transducers 3 is attached to the water bag housing 2 by a shaft 4. The water bag housing 2 is sealed by a membrane 5 and degassed water 6 is seen inside. In this way, if the water bag housing 2 can be brought into close contact with the living body 1, it becomes possible to irradiate the living body 1 with ultrasonic energy in any direction and in any position.

The ultrasonic transducer group 3 includes a treatment ultrasonic transducer 7 and an image ultrasonic transducer 8 formed with concave surfaces, and is assembled via a backing material 9. Ultrasonic transducer for treatment 7
Is a drive circuit 11 outside the water bag housing 2 through the connector 10.
And irradiates a treatment target 13 in the living body 1 with ultrasonic waves to perform treatment. On the other hand, the ultrasonic transducer for image 8 is B
Sector electronic scanning is performed with the mode system 12 to
This is for obtaining tomographic image information in the inside.

For example, when the image ultrasonic transducer 8 is formed of an array transducer, the B-mode system 12 specifically performs ultrasonic focusing and deflection scanning by driving each transducer via a delay circuit. A scanning circuit to be performed, and a signal processing circuit for obtaining a signal from each transducer of the image ultrasonic transducer 8 through the above-described delay circuit and then performing processing such as amplification detection to obtain an image signal 14 of a B-mode image. After being converted into a television video signal by an image processing device 15 using a digital scan converter or the like, a tomographic image, a therapeutic ultrasonic vibrator 7 and an image ultrasonic vibrator 8 are predetermined on a CRT display 16. And a focusing point marker determined by being arranged in the positional relationship of.

On the other hand, the ultrasonic transducer group 3 is connected to the position control unit 17 by the shaft 4. The position controller 17 is operated by a doctor or an operator via a control key 18 to move the ultrasonic transducer group 3 in the water bag housing 2 three-dimensionally. As a result, the ultrasonic transducer group 3 is moved so that the focusing point marker coincides with the treatment target 13 in the living body 1 described above, and the ultrasonic energy is focused on the treatment target 13 for treatment.

Next, a specific configuration of the position control unit 17 will be described with reference to FIG. The position control unit 17 is a rotation pulse motor 100
(Rotation direction arrow a) Left and right pulse motor 101 (left and right arrow b), depth pulse motor 102 (depth direction arrow c)
Are connected to and driven by a pulse motor driver (not shown). That is, the ultrasonic transducer group 3 moves three-dimensionally by rotating three pulse motors. Normal alignment is performed while viewing a tomographic image obtained from the above-described image ultrasonic transducer. Since the B-mode image is a tomographic image, the treatment target may not be initially in the image.
Is activated, the shaft 4 is rotated, and thus the ultrasonic transducer group 3 is rotated to adjust and fix the treatment target so as to enter the B-mode tomogram.

At this stage, since the treatment target is not on the center axis of the ultrasonic transducer for treatment, the pulse motor 101 for left and right is driven next to rotate the ultrasonic transducer group 3 through the T-par 103 to the left and right. And adjust it on the central axis and fix it. Next, in the depth direction, the pulse motor for depth
Adjust and fix 102. In this manner, the focus of the therapeutic ultrasonic transducer and the treatment target can be aligned.

Next, the flow of treatment in the ultrasonic treatment applicator having the above configuration will be described. First, the fixing frame 19 of the water bag housing 2
Then, the water bag housing 2 is brought into close contact with the body surface of the living body 1 that is most appropriate for the treatment target 13, and the arm 20 is fixed. Usually, the position of the treatment target 13 is sufficiently grasped by a doctor by an X-ray examination, a CT examination, etc. before this ultrasonic treatment,
The position where the water bag housing 2 is brought into close contact with the water bag housing 2 does not deviate greatly.

In this state, the image ultrasonic vibrator 8 is driven and CR
The tomographic image of the living body 1 and the focal point marker are displayed at fixed positions on the screen of T16. Then, looking at the tomographic image displayed in real time, operating the control key 18 and moving the ultrasonic transducer group 3 to find the treatment target 13, the ultrasonic wave where the focus point marker and the treatment target 13 coincide with each other The transducer group 3 is fixed, the drive circuit 11 is operated, and ultrasonic energy is irradiated toward the treatment target 13 to perform treatment.

The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, and can be implemented with various modifications without departing from the scope of the invention. For example, in the embodiments, the description has been made using the ultrasonic wave as the energy source for treatment, but the same applies to the shock wave. Further, although a concave transducer is used as the therapeutic ultrasonic transducer 7, a so-called annular array transducer in which a plurality of annular transducers are arranged concentrically may be used. In this case, since the positioning in the depth direction can electronically control the annular array vibrator, the depth direction of the three-dimensional position control unit 17 can be omitted. In this embodiment, the treatment ultrasonic transducer and the image ultrasonic transducer are fixed and moved, but they can be moved separately.

〔The invention's effect〕

According to the present invention, not only the effect of reducing the size of the apparatus by using the water bag housing, but also the positioning of the focus of the treatment energy and the treatment target can be performed without moving the water bag housing. Fine adjustment can be easily performed without the bag being in intimate contact with the living body and a tomographic image cannot be obtained, and the efficiency of treatment time and thus the efficiency of treatment can be improved.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of an ultrasonic therapy applicator of the present embodiment, and FIG. 2 is a configuration diagram of a position control unit. DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... living body, 2 ... water bag housing, 3 ... ultrasonic vibrator group, 4 ... shaft, 5 ... membrane, 6 ... water, 7 ... therapeutic ultrasonic vibrator, 8 ... image Ultrasonic transducer for 9
Backing material, 10 Connector, 11 Drive circuit, 12
... B mode system, 13 ... Treatment target, 14 ... Image signal, 15 ... Image processing device, 16 ... CRT, 17 ... Position controller, 18 ... Control key, 19 ... Fixed frame, 20 ... …arm.

Claims (6)

(57) [Claims] 1. A water bag housing to be brought into contact with a living body, a liquid contained in the water bag housing, and a focal region formed through the liquid provided in the water bag housing to provide therapeutic energy. Means for generating, means for obtaining the in-vivo image information provided in the water bag housing, means for generating the treatment energy or means for obtaining the image information while the water bag housing is fixed. And a movement control means for moving the image information three-dimensionally to an arbitrary position in the water bag housing, wherein the movement control means can rotate at least the means for obtaining the image information. And a therapeutic applicator. 2. The treatment applicator according to claim 1, wherein said treatment energy is ultrasound. 3. The treatment applicator according to claim 1, wherein said treatment energy is a shock wave. 4. The therapeutic applicator according to claim 1, wherein said means for obtaining image information is a B-mode image ultrasonic probe. 5. The therapeutic applicator according to claim 1, wherein the means for generating the treatment energy and the means for obtaining the image information are moved by the same movement control means. 6. The treatment applicator according to claim 1, wherein the means for generating the treatment energy and the means for obtaining the image information are moved by the separate movement control means.