JPH07116159A - Ultrasonograph - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide an ultrasonograph to inform the direction of a fetus, and the head and heart position of the fetus, by irradiating an ultrasonic wave on the stomach of a pregnant woman, obtaining the ultrasonic image of the fetus, and displaying the outline image of the fetus synthesized with the ultrasonic image. CONSTITUTION:The supply of a driving voltage with a constant frequency to a transmitter/receiver circuit 12 transmits an ultrasonic wave into the stomach of a pregnant woman repeatedly from a head-swinging vibrator 6. The ultrasonic wave reflects at a sharply changing point of the acoustic impedance in the stomach and the reflected wave is received at the vibrator 6. This received signal is sequentially stored in the storage space of a DSC 17, whose output signal is displayed on a TV monitor 18 through an adder 19. And from among various fetus body marks registered on a body mark table 15, a body mark selected by an operator according to the pregnant term and the direction of the fetus can be picked up by operating the input device 22, and is synthesized with the ultrasonic image at the adder 19 under the control by a CPU 20. The synthesized image is displayed on the monitor 18.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus used for screening pregnant women.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Ultrasound-based image diagnosis is widely used for the examination of pregnant women because it does not have the problem of exposure such as X-rays. In addition, during the examination, the pregnant woman is explained about the developmental status of the fetus and the like while referring to the ultrasonic image.

However, since an ultrasonic image is generally unclear as compared with an X-ray tomographic image or the like, in a pregnant woman who may have little experience reading an ultrasonic image, the direction of the fetus, the position of the head, and the position of the heart from the doctor. In many cases, the condition of the fetus cannot be understood at all unless the details are pointed out on the ultrasonic image.

Further, this ultrasonic image may be handed to a pregnant woman in a state where a monitor screen is photographed by a polaroid camera or printed by a printer. This photograph is as valuable as a umbilical cord to a pregnant woman, and is valuable as much as she wants to keep for a lifetime. It's very disappointing.

[0005]

In view of the above-mentioned circumstances, the present invention provides an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus in which even a person with little experience reading an ultrasonic image can easily understand the state of the fetus reflected in the ultrasonic image. With the goal.

[0006]

The present invention is an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus for obtaining an ultrasonic image of a fetus by scanning the abdomen of a pregnant woman with ultrasonic waves, by combining the contour image of the fetus with the ultrasonic image. It is characterized by displaying as.

[0007]

According to the present invention, since the contour image of the fetus is synthesized and displayed on the ultrasonic image, even a person who has little experience reading the ultrasonic image can detect the direction of the fetus, the position of the head, the position of the heart, and the like. It can be easily understood from the acoustic image.

[0008]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to an embodiment. In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 is a mechanical sector scanning ultrasonic probe. The rotational movement of the stepping motor 9 is transmitted to the vibrator 6 via the crank mechanism, and the vibrator 6 swings at high speed. As a result, the ultrasonic waves emitted from the vibrator 6 are moved within the fan-shaped range. The rotation angle of the stepping motor 9 is detected by the rotation detector 8. The ultrasonic probe 1 is not limited to the mechanical sector scanning type, and may be an electronic sector scanning type, and the scanning method is not limited to the sector scanning, and other scanning methods such as linear scanning may be used. Of course, it may be.

At the time of transmission, the rotation of the stepping motor 9 is controlled by the rotation control circuit 13 of the main body 10.
A drive voltage is applied to the vibrator 6 from the transmission / reception circuit 12 of the main body 10. As a result, ultrasonic waves are emitted from the vibrator 6. The ultrasonic wave radiated from the vibrator 6 is reflected by the boundary of the acoustic impedance in the subject and received by the vibrator 6. This received signal is sent to the digital scan converter 17 via the transmission / reception circuit 12. Transmitter / receiver circuit 12
Detects the envelope after logarithmically amplifying the received signal,
The detection signal is output via the analog-digital converter. This detection signal is sequentially stored in the two-dimensional digital memory area corresponding to the display screen of the TV monitor 18 in the digital scan converter 17 according to the rotation angle of the stepping motor 9 detected by the rotation detector 8. The stored contents of the digital scan converter 17 are scanned along the same scanning path as the scanning procedure of the TV monitor 18 under the control of the CPU 20, and are arranged and read in one dimension. The output signal of the digital scan converter 17 is a digital-analog converter and adder 1 not shown.
An ultrasonic image (tomographic image) is displayed on the TV monitor 18 through 9 in sequence.
Is displayed as.

The body mark table 15 connected to the body mark display circuit 14 of the main body 10 has a structure shown in FIG.
Various patterns of body marks as shown in (a) to (j) are registered in advance as graphic data. 2A to 2D are maternal body marks in various orientations, and FIGS. 2E to 2J are fetal body marks in various orientations. The body marks in FIGS. 2 (e) to 2 (j) are ones in the first trimester of pregnancy, but 3 months of pregnancy,
It is desirable to register body marks of fetuses at various times such as 5 months, 6 months, 7 months, 8 months and 9 months in the body mark table 15.

The body mark is selected by operating the input device 22 such as a keyboard. This input device 22
In addition to selecting the body mark, also serves as an input device for inputting the enlargement ratio and display position of the body mark. Switch panel 1 connected to body mark display circuit 14
1 is provided with a rotary operation type volume switch 21 for inputting a rotation angle when the body mark is displayed on the TV monitor 18.

The graphic data selectively read from the body mark table 15 is written in the internal memory of the body mark display circuit 14. The read operation of the graphic data stored in the internal memory of the body mark display circuit 14 is performed in accordance with the enlargement ratio and the display position input from the input device 22 by the CPU 20, and the rotation angle input from the volume switch 21.
The signal is read by the adder 19 in synchronism with the reading scan of the digital scan converter 17, and is added to the output signal of the digital scan converter 17 by the adder 19. This makes the body mark desired by the operator
The ultrasonic image is synthesized with an arbitrary size, position and angle and displayed on the TV monitor 18.

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be described. A pulsed driving voltage is supplied from the rotation control circuit 13 to the stepping motor 9 at a constant cycle, and the stepping motor 9 rotates at a constant angular velocity. In response to this rotation, the vibrator 6 makes a neck-down motion. At this time, a drive voltage is supplied to the vibrator 6 from the transmission / reception circuit 12 in a constant cycle, whereby ultrasonic waves are repeatedly emitted from the vibrator 6. This ultrasonic wave is reflected by the boundary of the acoustic impedance in the abdomen of the pregnant woman and is received by the vibrator 6. The received signal is logarithmically amplified and envelope-detected by the transmission / reception circuit 12, and then sequentially stored in the memory area of the digital scan converter 17 according to the rotation angle of the stepping motor 9 detected by the rotation detector 8. The stored contents of the digital scan converter 17 are scanned by the control of the CPU 20 along the same scanning path as the scanning procedure of the TV monitor 18 and read as a one-dimensional signal. The output signal of the digital scan converter 17 is digital-analog converted, and then displayed as an ultrasonic image on the TV monitor 18 via the adder 19. When a good ultrasonic image is captured while moving the ultrasonic probe 1 on the surface of the abdomen of the pregnant woman, the ultrasonic image is displayed in a frozen state on the TV monitor 18, for example. This freeze state is performed by repeatedly reading the signal of the same image from the digital scan converter 17. In this frozen state, doctors often explain the fetal condition to pregnant women.

In the present embodiment, the body mark of the fetus is adjusted to the contour of the unclear fetal image by using the processes of moving, rotating and enlarging. The procedure for this alignment is shown in FIG. In step (S1), the body mark table 15
From the body marks of various fetuses registered in
The body mark selected by the operator according to the current pregnancy period and the orientation of the fetus image is selectively designated by operating the input device 22. In step (S2), the graphic data of the selected body mark is
After being temporarily stored in the internal memory of the body mark display circuit 14, it is read from the internal memory under the control of the CPU 20 and is synthesized into an ultrasonic image by the adder 19. This composite image is displayed on the TV monitor 18.

In step (S3), the display position of the body mark is specified by operating the input device 22 in accordance with the deviation between the center of the fetus image (for example, the heart position) and the center of the body mark. In step (S4), the timing of reading the graphic data from the internal memory of the body mark display circuit 14 with respect to the reading of the digital scan converter 17 is changed from the state of step (S2) according to the designated position. As a result, the body mark moves, and the center of the body mark coincides with the center of the fetus image.

Next, step (S5) is executed. That is, the volume switch 21 is operated according to the difference between the orientation of the fetus and the orientation of the body mark on the ultrasonic image. This rotation angle is sent to the CPU 20 via the body mark display circuit 14. The CPU 20 changes the scanning path of the internal memory of the body mark display circuit 14 from the state of step (S4) according to this rotation angle. As a result, in step (S6), the body mark rotates about its center, and the directions of the fetus and the body mark match.

Then, in step (S7), the enlargement ratio is input from the input device 22 in accordance with the difference between the size of the fetus and the size of the body mark on the ultrasonic image. This enlargement ratio is sent to the CPU 20 via the body mark display circuit 14. The CPU 20 changes the scanning speed of the graphic data from the internal memory of the body mark display circuit 14 from the state of step (S6) according to the enlargement ratio. As a result, in step (S8), the body mark is enlarged or reduced on the display screen, and as shown in FIG.
The body mark is superposed on the contour image of the fetus. This display screen is appropriately output as a photograph by a Polaroid camera or the like, or is printed by a printer and output.

According to this embodiment, the body mark of the fetus is displayed in an overlapping manner on the ultrasonic image in a state similar to the unclear fetal contour image, so that even a pregnant woman who may have little experience in interpreting the ultrasonic image. , The orientation of the fetus, the position of the head, the position of the heart, etc. can be easily recognized, and the doctor can quickly and easily explain the condition of the fetus to the pregnant woman. In addition, because the body mark of the fetus is also shown in the photograph in a state similar to the blurred outline image of the fetus, even after a long time has passed from the time of this examination, the orientation of the fetus and the position of the head , The position of the heart, etc. can be easily recognized. The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiments and can be variously modified and implemented without departing from the scope of the invention.

[0019]

According to the present invention, since the contour image of the fetus is synthesized and displayed on the ultrasonic image, the direction of the fetus, the position of the head, the position of the heart, etc. can be obtained even by a person who has little experience in interpreting the ultrasonic image. There is provided an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus capable of easily understanding the above from an ultrasonic image.

[Brief description of drawings]

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

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of body marks registered in a body mark table of FIG.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure of aligning a body mark with a contour of a fetus.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of a display screen of a TV monitor after the processing of FIG. 3 is completed.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... Ultrasonic probe, 6 ... Oscillator, 8 ... Rotation controller, 9
... Stepping motor, 10 ... Main body, 11 ... Switch panel, 12 ... Transceiver circuit, 13 ... Rotation control circuit, 14 ...
Body mark display circuit, 15 ... Body mark table,
16 ... Display unit, 17 ... Digital scan converter, 18 ... TV monitor, 19 ... Adder, 20 ... CP
U, 21 ... Volume switch, 22 ... Input device.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus for obtaining an ultrasonic image of a fetus by scanning the abdomen of a pregnant woman with ultrasonic waves, wherein a contour image of the fetus is synthesized with the ultrasonic image and displayed. Ultrasonic diagnostic equipment.