JPH04279154A - Ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To enable the obtaining uniformity of sensitivity in a blank blood stream imaging (CFM). CONSTITUTION:In an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus having a B mode and CFM as base mode, a control means comprising a CPU14 or the like is arranged to allow the setting of focus conditions independently for each mode in response to a mode switching of the B mode and the CFMF, and a US transmitting section 2 and a US receiving section 3 are driven and controlled by the control means.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

[Purpose of the invention]

0001

[Industrial Application Field] The present invention is applicable to B mode for morphological observation and color blood flow imaging (generally referred to as CFM: Color-Flow-Mapping, hereinafter referred to as "CFM") for blood flow observation. The present invention relates to an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus equipped with a basic mode of ultrasonic diagnostic equipment, and particularly relates to improvements in control technology for an ultrasonic transmitter/receiver.

0002

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, this type of ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus has been designed to strengthen the convergence of an ultrasonic beam in order to improve spatial resolution. Apply strong focus (convergence) (
This is to improve spatial resolution and obtain reflected echoes at the focus point. In particular, regarding B mode, we will further push that idea,
Ultrasonic beams with different focus points were sent and received multiple times to achieve strong focus for each depth, and were combined on display to create a uniform, high-resolution B-mode ultrasound image. This is to compensate for the characteristic of ultrasonic images that, as shown in FIG. 5, when a strong focus is applied, high resolution is obtained at the focus point, but on the other hand, blurring becomes greater at areas other than the focus point.

0003

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] By the way, the sound speed of ultrasonic waves is constant at about 1530 m/sec in a living body, so it is necessary to transmit and receive ultrasonic beams with different focus points multiple times to achieve a strong focus at each depth. Doing so reduces the number of frames for obtaining ultrasound images. There is no problem in the case of B mode only, but in the case of CFM, it is necessary to transmit and receive the same ultrasonic raster multiple times in order to perform frequency analysis of the Doppler effect of the ultrasonic waves, resulting in an extension of the observation time. Therefore, in the case of CFM, if strong focusing is performed for each depth as described above, real-time performance will be impaired and diagnosis will be hindered.

Therefore, in the conventional case, when using CFM, the ultrasonic beam was transmitted and received using one transmitting stage, but with this transmitting and receiving means, the uniformity of sensitivity is reduced, and the CF
There was a problem that the reliability of M's ultrasound images had decreased.

[0005] The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned circumstances, and its object is to provide an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus that can obtain uniformity of sensitivity during CFM. [Structure of the invention]

[0006]

[Means for Solving the Problems] In order to achieve the above object of the present invention, in an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus having B mode and CFM as basic modes, in response to mode switching between B mode and CFM, The apparatus is characterized in that it includes a control means that can independently set focus conditions for each mode, and that the control means drives and controls the ultrasonic transmitting and receiving section.

[0007]

[Operation] If the configuration of the ultrasonic judgment device according to the present invention is,
Since the focus conditions for B mode and CFM are independent, weak focus can be applied as the focus condition for CFM as shown in FIG. 4. In this case, although the sensitivity resolution near the focal point of the ultrasound beam decreases slightly, on the contrary, the deep sensitivity improves, and overall sensitivity uniformity during CFM is obtained, improving the reliability of CFM ultrasound images. can be improved. Note that in the B mode, it is preferable to transmit and receive ultrasonic beams with different focus points a plurality of times to achieve strong focusing for each depth, as in the conventional method.

[0008]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the system configuration of an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

In the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus of this embodiment, the probe 1 transmits and receives ultrasound beams to and from the subject, so the probe 1 is driven to transmit by the US transmitter 2, and is driven to receive by the US receiver 3. be done. In this example, U
The S transmitter 2 controls the number of barrel elements that focus each transducer element of the probe 1 and the excitation pulse that is applied to each element.
Furthermore, functions are provided to generate excitation pulse timing and determine transmission focus. On the other hand, the US receiving section 3
is given the function of receiving the number of receiving elements and reception timing from the US transmission/reception control unit 4 for received echoes from each transducer element of the probe 1, forming a receiving ultrasonic beam, and determining the receiving focus. .

Furthermore, in order to perform B-mode processing, the amplifying section 5
, a processing system consisting of a detection section 6, a DSC section 7, and a phase filter section 9, a frequency analysis section 10, and a CFM processing system for performing CFM processing.
A processing system consisting of an FMDSC section 11 is provided. Each of the B-mode and CFM processing systems has a known configuration, and a B-mode or CFM image is reconstructed in the image synthesis unit 12 based on data from these processing systems and displayed on the display 13. become.

[0011] The CPU 14, which is the control center for the entire system for each of these parts, controls the focus conditions to be independent for each mode each time either B mode or CFM is selected in response to a mode switching operation on the panel 15. A sequence operation is performed to set the . And the CPU
Timing signal generator 1 according to the sequence operation of 14.
6 generates a timing signal.

In addition, in the figure, the control data of the CPU 14 is shown as (
A), the timing signal of the timing signal generator 16 is (
B) and ultrasonic transmission/reception control data of the US transmission/reception control unit 4 are shown in (C).

In this embodiment having the system configuration as described above, each raster signal (Rat) shown in FIG.
e) and one frame signal (OF), the B mode (strong focus data) and CFM (weak focus data) are transmitted to the US transmitter 2 and the US receiver according to the timing shown in FIG. 3 are given respectively. Here, the reason why the timing of CFM is longer than that of B mode is because frequency analysis takes time as described above.

Therefore, in the panel 15, B mode and C
When a mode switching operation for selecting FM is performed, weak focus as shown in FIG. 4 is performed, and in B mode, strong focus is performed as shown in FIG.

It should be noted that focus data is preferably calculated in advance because it generally involves a large amount of data and requires time to calculate, and is stored in the CPU 14 in this embodiment. Then, this focus data is switched using a control signal to switch to a desired weak focus or strong focus. Of course, the focus data may be stored in the US transmission/reception control unit 4 other than the CPU 14 or directly in the transmitting unit 2 and receiving unit 3, and may be switched using a control signal.

In this way, according to this embodiment, the CFM
Because weak focusing is sometimes performed, even if the sensitivity resolution near the focal point decreases slightly, deep sensitivity is greatly improved, so overall sensitivity uniformity during CFM is obtained, and CFM super The reliability of sonic images has been improved.

[0017]

[Effects of the Invention] As explained above, according to the present invention, B
Since focus conditions can be set independently for each mode depending on the mode and CFM, uniformity of sensitivity can be ensured by performing weak focus during CFM. Accordingly, the reliability of CFM ultrasound images can be improved.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

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

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing the relationship between one raster signal and one frame signal.

FIG. 3 is a timing chart showing a control operation in an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram showing a weak focus state.

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram showing a state of strong focus.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 Probe 2 US transmitter 3 US receiving section 4 US transmission/reception control section 5 Amplification section 6 Detection section 7 DSC section 8 Phase detection section 9 Filter section 10 Frequency analyzer 11 CFMDSC section 12 Image composition section 13 Display 14 CPU 15 Panel 16 Timing signal generation section

Claims (2)

[Claims] Claim 1: In an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus equipped with B mode for morphological observation and color blood flow imaging for blood flow observation as basic modes, in response to mode switching between B mode and color blood flow imaging, Equipped with a control means that allows focus conditions to be set independently for each mode,
An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus characterized in that the control means drives and controls an ultrasonic transmitting/receiving section. 2. The ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the focus conditions that can be set by the control means are strong focus for B mode and weak focus for color blood flow imaging.