JPH02189140A - Ultrasonic endoscope device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To enable execution of proper visual field observation and ultrasonic observation as a correlation between an ultrasonic observation image and a visual observation portion is taken by providing a means which effects display in a manner to overlap an ultrasonic fault line with a visual field observation image. CONSTITUTION:An ultrasonic endoscope device is provided at the tip of an insertion part with a visual observation optical system 12 and an ultrasonic vibrator 13 and effecting visual observation and ultrasonic observation. The ultrasonic endoscope device is provided with a means 20 to measure a distance between the tip surface of the insertion part and a diagnosing portion and a means 21 to display an ultrasonic fault line based on a measuring result produced by the measuring means 20. Since an ultrasonic fault line can be displayed on a visual field observation image produced by an endoscope visual field display part 22 or an ocular part, proper visual field observation and ultrasonic observation can be executed as a correlation between an ultrasonic observation image and a visual field observation portion is taken.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Industrial Application Field] The present invention is equipped with a means for obtaining an optical image and a means for obtaining an ultrasonic image at the distal end, and it is possible to observe the diseased area deep inside the body cavity as well as the inside of the body cavity. possible, and the ultrasound diagnosis position is T11.
The present invention relates to a recognizable ultrasonic endoscope.

[Conventional technology]

Conventionally, ultrasound endoscopes have been used to discover tumors and the like formed in body cavities, for example, inside the stomach wall or on the outer wall of the stomach. In such an ultrasonic endoscope, an insertion section of the endoscope equipped with an ultrasonic probe is inserted into a body cavity, and a space between the ultrasonic probe and the affected area inside the body cavity is suitable for ultrasonic transmission. Ultrasonic observation was performed by disposing a balloon containing a medium, such as physiological saline, and driving an ultrasound probe. In this case, it is unclear where the ultrasound waves are hitting the area, making it difficult to correlate the ultrasound observed image with the visually observed area, making it difficult to perform operations to obtain accurate tomographic planes of the diagnostic area. .

Therefore, in Japanese Utility Model Application Publication No. 58-15701, a light-emitting surface that emits detection light is formed at a desired location of the rigid part of the head that includes an ultrasound probe, and the detection light from the light-emitting surface is transmitted from outside the body to the skin. A configuration is described in which the transmission direction of an ultrasonic wave transmission surface located in a predetermined direction from the light emitting surface is confirmed by visually observing the light.

Furthermore, West German Published Patent No. 3336803 discloses that an ultrasonic probe is equipped with a light emitting function, and the emitted light is inserted into other parts of the body cavity and observed with an endoscope. describes an attempt to recognize the position of an ultrasound probe. Both of these two prior examples attempt to determine the scanning position of an ultrasound probe by observing the light that has passed through the body wall or the affected area.

Furthermore, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 58-133232 discloses a structure in which an image pickup element and an ultrasound probe are rotated at the same time,
It is described that the obtained optical image and ultrasound image are arranged in a relative positional relationship with each other, so that the ultrasound image can be obtained after confirming the diagnostic site with the optical image.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

However, in the prior example described in Utility Model Application No. 58-15701, the light emitted from the light emitting element attached near the ultrasound probe is intended to be visually recognized indirectly through the body wall. There is a problem where the confirmation is inaccurate.

Furthermore, in the prior example described in JP-A No. 58-133232, an ultrasonic probe is provided at the tip and an image sensor is provided on the back of the probe. There is a problem in that it is not possible to observe the affected area at the same time.

Furthermore, there is a method that attempts to simultaneously observe the ultrasound diagnosis site using a reflecting mirror and light synchronized with the rotation of the reflecting mirror, such as that described in Japanese Patent Publication No. 63-3616, but the The distal end structure is complicated, and the diameter of the insertion portion is large.

The present invention has been proposed to solve these problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide an ultrasound endoscope that can display accurate tomographic lines for ultrasound diagnosis within the observation field during ultrasound scanning. be.

[Means and effects for solving the problem] In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, the present invention provides a visual field observation optical system and an ultrasonic transducer at the tip of the insertion section, so that visual field observation and ultrasonic observation can be performed. The ultrasonic endoscope apparatus is provided with means for superimposing and displaying an ultrasonic tomographic line on a visual field observation image.

By displaying the ultrasonic tomographic line in the visual field observation image of the eyepiece and the visual field observation image of the visual field display unit in this manner, it is possible to establish a correlation between the ultrasonic observation image and the visual field observation site.

〔Example〕

FIG. 1 is an external perspective view of an endoscope according to a first embodiment of the present invention. The endoscope 1 includes an eyepiece section 2, an operation section 3, an insertion section 4,
It has a universal cord 5 and a connector 6. The insertion section 4 consists of a flexible section 7, a curved section 8, and a distal end section 9, and extends inside the insertion section 4 and the operating section 3, and is provided with an image guide, a light guide, a forceps channel, and the like.

Further, the operation section 3 is provided with an angle knob 10 and a forceps insertion port 11, and by operating the angle knob 10, the curved portion 8 is bent to change the direction of the tip portion 9, and the forceps insertion port 11 Tissues inside the body cavity are collected by inserting forceps through the forceps channel. The incident end of the light guide is connected to a light source unit (not shown) via a universal cord 5 and a connector 6, thereby illuminating the inside of the body cavity via the light guide,
The image is observed with the naked eye at the eyepiece section 2 via an objective lens system, an image guide, and an eyepiece system, or is displayed on a monitor via a television camera.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of this embodiment. The tip portion 9 is provided with a tip optical system 12 and an ultrasonic transducer 13. The ultrasonic transducer 13 includes a pulser circuit 15, a control circuit 16, a receiving circuit 17, and a DSC (digital scan converter).
It is controlled by an observation device 14 provided with 18.

The ultrasonic transducer 1 is controlled by the pulser circuit 15 and the control circuit 16.
3 is driven to irradiate the subject with ultrasonic waves, and the reflected echo is detected by the ultrasonic transducer 13. The ultrasonic signal (reflected echo) thus obtained is received by the receiving circuit 17, then subjected to imaging signal processing by the DSC 18, and displayed as an ultrasonic tomographic image on an ultrasonic image display unit 19 such as a TV monitor. .

On the other hand, the distance measuring circuit 20 is connected to the receiving circuit 17, and is also connected so that a signal from the control circuit 16 can be input at the same time when the signal is sent from the control circuit I6 to the pulser circuit 15. The distance measuring circuit 20 then sends a tomographic line signal to the endoscopic visual field display section 22 via the tomographic line creation circuit 21.

Furthermore, the optical observation image from the tip optical system is displayed on the endoscope visual field display section 22. In this way, means for measuring the distance between the distal end surface of the insertion section facing the diagnosis site and the surface of the diagnosis site, and a means for displaying the ultrasonic tomographic line on the endoscope visual field display section 22 based on the measured distance are provided. A correlation is made between the ultrasound observed image and the visual field observed area.

Next, a method for creating fault lines will be explained. The distance between the tip optical system 12 and the diagnostic site can be calculated using reflected ultrasound echoes, and the tomographic line is created based on this. To measure this distance, for example, the control circuit 16 sends a signal to the pulser circuit 15, and at the same time the distance measurement circuit 20 is activated, and the receiving circuit 17 receives a reflected echo that returns from the subject and determines it as the first echo. and calculate it.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating the principle of creating fault lines.

As shown in FIG. 3A, the ultrasonic tomographic line of the ultrasonic transducer 13 provided at the distal end 9 is displayed as line A, which is in the direction perpendicular to the insertion direction of the ultrasonic endoscope. It is formed. The tip optical system 12 is provided as a so-called side-viewing type, and its viewing angle is 2θ. Ultrasonic transducer 1
3 is provided closer to the distal end than the distal optical system 12, and the visual field center B of the distal optical system 12 is parallel to and separated from the ultrasonic tomographic line A of the ultrasonic transducer 13 by a distance a. Third
The circle shown at the bottom of Figure A indicates the range in which the surface of the subject is observed from the tip optical system 12.

The endoscope visual field display section 22 displays an observation visual field that is approximately circular in diameter, as shown in FIG. 3B.

The tomographic line A has a distance t9 from the center of the visual field on the subject.
yn is expressed as the focus of a point Xn expressed by an angle ψn with the insertion direction.

In an optical system such as an endoscope, generally when the angle of view is 90° or less as shown in Figure 4, the angle of view of the objective lens is set to 20°, the focal length is f1, the mask diameter of the image guide is set to 20°, etc.
0, and the height of the image on the image guide is α, then the following relationships hold: c=f sin θ −−−−−(1) b = f sin ω−−−−−(2). Therefore, regarding the height a of an object located a distance apart, the object within the field of view of the diameter of the endoscope field display section 22 is represented by polar coordinates as X'n C1! (yn),
ψn) and is expressed as the focus of yn 11sin (tan-').

The above is the display of the tomographic line on the endoscope visual field display section 22 of the ultrasound endoscope, but the display on the eyepiece section 2 which is the second embodiment will be explained according to FIG. The same reference numerals are given to parts corresponding to those in the example). In this example, A
As shown in the figure, an adapter 23 for displaying tomographic lines is provided in the eyepiece 2 of the endoscope 1. Figure B is an enlarged sectional view of this adapter 23. A half mirror 25 is provided above the connecting part 24 with the eyepiece part 2, and a field window 26 is provided above it so that the field observation image from the tip optical system 12 can be viewed directly. On the other hand, a liquid crystal monitor 27 is provided in a direction perpendicular to the direct viewing direction of the viewing window 26, and the tomographic line is reflected by the half mirror 25 via an optical system 28 disposed between the viewing window 26 and the viewing window 26. A superimposed display of the visual field observation image and the tomographic line is observed.

FIG. 0 is an external view of the observation device 14, the light source unit 29, and the tomographic line device 30 to which connectors of various cords extending from the endoscope 1 are connected.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of this embodiment, and to explain only the differences from FIG. 2, the ultrasonic signal detected by the ultrasonic transducer 13 is received by the receiving circuit 17 via the preamplifier 33. That's what I do. A fault line 30 is connected to the observation device 14, and the fault line device 30 is provided with a comparison circuit 31, a counter 32, and a fault line creation circuit 21.1. A visual field observation image is sent from the tip optical system 12 to the eyepiece 2, and an adapter 23 is connected to the eyepiece 2. The fault line creation circuit 21 is connected to this adapter 23. The method and principle of creating a fault line are the same as in the first embodiment.

In this embodiment, the results of determining the tomographic line in this manner are transmitted to the adapter 23 connected to the eyepiece 2 and displayed on the liquid crystal monitor 27. The image on the liquid crystal monitor 27 passes through an optical system 28 and is observed through a viewing window 26 along with a viewing image through a half mirror 25.

In this way, the visual field observation image and the tomographic line can be displayed in a superimposed manner.

Next, the actual observation and diagnosis situation using the ultrasonic endoscope will be explained based on the above principle with reference to FIG. First, the endoscope is inserted into the body cavity, and when it reaches the desired location, it is observed using the distal optical system 12 as shown in FIG. 7(A).

S is a tumor site occurring in the subject. The endoscopic visual field display section 22 displays the surface of the subject centered at S, as shown in FIG. 7(B).

In this state, the ultrasonic transducer 13 irradiates the object with ultrasonic waves and uses the reflected echo to determine the distance i9h from the surface of the object.
Measure. Based on the principle described above, the ultrasonic tomographic line 1 is displayed superimposed on the visual field image as shown in FIG. 7(B). On the other hand, the ultrasonic image display section 19 is displayed as shown in FIG.
), a portion of the subject that is outside the certain position of S is displayed as an ultrasound tomographic image.

Next, in order to perform ultrasound scanning of the ultrasound tomographic plane of the tumor area S,
The ultrasound endoscope is operated so that the tumor part S is located on the ultrasound tomographic line i. As a result, an ultrasonic tomographic image of the tumor part S is displayed on the ultrasonic display section 19 as shown in FIG. 7(E). In this way, ultrasound scanning can be performed while accurately visualizing the region of the subject from which an ultrasound tomographic image is desired. It goes without saying that the above is common to observation in the endoscope visual field display section 22 and observation in the eyepiece section 2.

In addition, although the above example shows the case where the ultrasonic tomographic plane is perpendicular to the insertion direction of the endoscope insertion section, this is not attached and the ultrasonic wave is applied to the visual field image. As long as the tomographic line is properly displayed, it goes without saying that this method can also be applied to cases where the tomographic plane is parallel to the insertion direction of the insertion section. Further, the scanning method using ultrasonic waves is not limited to the radial scan method, and an electronic sector method, an electronic convex method, etc. can also be used.

FIG. 8 shows the principle of creating a tomographic line according to the third embodiment of the present invention, and is an explanatory diagram when the ultrasonic tomographic plane is parallel to the insertion direction of the endoscope insertion section. . The tomographic line A has a distance yn from the center of the visual field on the subject,
and the point XnO focus represented by the angle ψn. Therefore, an object within the diametrical field of view of the endoscope field display section (Figure B) is expressed as a focal point of Xn (jHyn), ψn) by polar coordinate display, as in the first embodiment.

Here, I'"""-'h tana+-a.

FIG. 9 shows a fourth embodiment of the present invention. This embodiment can be called a modification of the second embodiment, and as shown in Figure A, a tomographic line display mechanism is built into the eyepiece 2 of the endoscope 1. Figure B is an enlarged sectional view of this fault line display mechanism. The visual field observation image from the tip optical system is guided through the image guide 35, passes through the half mirror 25, is guided by the relay lens 34, and is observed by the eyepiece optical system provided in the eyepiece section 2. It has become.

On the other hand, a liquid crystal monitor is installed in the direction perpendicular to the observation system for observing the visual field observation image, and a half mirror 25 is connected via the optical system 28.
The tomographic line is guided to the area and reflected by the half mirror 25 toward the relay lens 34, so that a superimposed display of the visual field observation image and the tomographic line can be observed from the eyepiece optical system.

FIG. 10 is a block diagram of this embodiment. Although the configuration is almost the same as that in FIG. 6, which is a block diagram of the second embodiment,
In this embodiment, a liquid crystal monitor 27 is connected to a fault line creation circuit 21 provided in a fault line device 30, and a fault line is guided to the eyepiece section 2.Other configurations are similar to those of the second embodiment. It is similar to

FIG. 11 shows a fifth embodiment of the present invention.

This example uses an endoscope (Figure A) to
The tomographic image and the visual field observation image are displayed on the endoscope visual field display section 9 and the endoscopic visual field display section 22, respectively (Figure B). FIG. 12 is a block diagram of this embodiment. In this example, the visual field observation image obtained by the tip optical system 12 is
A solid-state image pickup device such as a CD is used to guide the image to the endoscope visual field display section 22. The tomographic line creation circuit 21 provided in the tomographic line device 30 is connected to an endoscope video image center unit 36 and is configured to process both images and display them in a superimposed manner on the endoscopic visual field display section 22.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As described above, according to the present invention, by means of measuring the distance between the distal end surface of the insertion section and the diagnosis site, and means for displaying the ultrasonic tomographic line based on the measuring means, Since the ultrasonic tomographic line can be displayed on the visual field observation image obtained at the section, appropriate visual field observation and ultrasonic observation can be performed while correlating the ultrasonic observation image and the visual field observation site.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is an overall perspective view of an ultrasound endoscope showing a first embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a block diagram thereof, FIGS. 3A, B, and 4 are ultrasound tomographic line creation 5A, B, and C are an overall view of an endoscope showing a second embodiment of the present invention, a partial partial view, and a close-up view of the endoscope visual field display section. is a block diagram thereof, FIGS. 7(A) to (E) are diagrams showing the status of specimen observation and diagnosis, and FIG. 8 is an explanation of the principle of creating an ultrasonic tomographic line according to the third embodiment of the present invention. 9A and 9B are an overall view and a partial partial view of an endoscope according to a fourth embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 10 is a block diagram thereof, and FIGS. 11A and B are main views. An overall view of an endoscope according to a fifth embodiment of the invention, an overall view of the vicinity of each display device, and FIG. 12 are block diagrams thereof. 12... Tip optical system 13... Ultrasonic transducer 19... Ultrasonic image display section 20... Distance measurement circuit 21... Fault line creation circuit 22... Endoscope field of view display section Figure 2 Figure 4 Figure 3 Figure 6 (A) Figure 7 (B) (D) (C) (E) Figure 8 Figure 9 A Figure 1 θ Figure 12 Ordinary August 1989 1 Day

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. In an ultrasound endoscope device that is equipped with a visual field observation optical system and an ultrasonic transducer at the tip of the insertion section and is capable of visual field observation and ultrasonic observation, An ultrasonic endoscope apparatus comprising means for superimposing and displaying tomographic lines.