JPH08266537A - Ultrasonic diagnostic system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To efficiently preserve and reproduce data without deteriorating a diagnostic image by performing the read/write of the data on an external memory device by directly transmitting/receiving the data as digital data to/from the external memory device, respectively. CONSTITUTION: A first switch 5 selects either ultrasonic data digitized by an A/D converter 3 or the data stored in a cine memory 4, and delivers it to a scan converter 6. The external memory device 15 writes the data stored in the cine memory 4 and a memory 13 for storing living body signal on an external storage medium 16, or reads out the data from the external storage medium 16 a writes it on the cine memory 4 and the memory 13 for living body signal. Reception data of plural frames at every scanning line of an ultrasonic beam outputted from the A/D converter 3 is preserved in the cine memory 4.

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 for displaying a tomographic image or a blood flow image of a diagnostic region of a subject using ultrasonic waves, and more particularly to the contents of a cine memory and a biological information storage memory. The present invention relates to an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus having an external storage device for transmitting and receiving data.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A conventional ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus is shown in FIG.
As shown in FIG. 1, a probe 1 that transmits and receives ultrasonic waves in the subject.
And an ultrasonic wave transmitting / receiving unit 2 for driving the probe 1 to generate an ultrasonic wave and for processing the received reflected echo signal.
And an analog / digital (A / D) converter 3 for digitizing the reflected echo signal from the ultrasonic wave transmitting / receiving unit 2,
Output data of a cine memory 4 for storing a plurality of frames of the digital signal from the A / D converter 3 in time series, or A
A switcher 5 for selecting the output data of the / D converter 3,
A scan converter 6 that writes a digital signal from the switch 5 for each scanning line of an ultrasonic beam to form image data, image data output from the scan converter 6, and biological information and device settings not shown. A synthesizing circuit 7 for synthesizing information, and a D / A converter 8 for inputting the data synthesized by this synthesizing circuit and converting it into an analog signal.
And an image display device 8 for inputting and displaying an analog signal from the D / A converter 8 and a control device 10 for controlling the operation of the above elements.

In the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus configured as described above, since the data in the cine memory cannot be transmitted / received to / from an external storage medium, when the ultrasonic diagnostic image information is stored, for example, (1) image display Take a picture of the image displayed on the device 9, (2) Output the D / A converter 8 to the TV
Record on the video tape recorder 100 as a signal,
(3) The output signal of the scan converter 6 is stored in an external storage medium such as a magneto-optical disk through the external storage device 200.

[0004]

However, in an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus in which a diagnostic image is stored in a photo or video tape recorder 100, the image quality of the stored diagnostic image is degraded when the analog signal is stored on the tape. There was a problem of doing.

Further, in the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus of the type in which the output of the scan converter 6 or the data after adding biometric information to the output of the scan converter 6 is stored in an external storage medium, the image quality is deteriorated because it is a digital signal. Is few. However, when data stored at a high frame rate (300 frames per second) such as a heart image is stored on a magneto-optical disk, the current interface is
There was a problem that it took several minutes to transfer the heartbeat data. Therefore, there is a problem that the diagnosis efficiency is low.

Further, even when comparing the diagnostic images such as the confirmation of the therapeutic effect using the data stored as described above, since the image before the treatment and the image after the treatment are different devices, the same screen is displayed. Since it cannot be displayed above, there is a problem that the comparison diagnosis is difficult and the diagnosis efficiency is poor.

An object of the present invention is to provide a technique capable of efficiently storing / reproducing data without degrading a diagnostic image.

Another object of the present invention is to provide an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus capable of simultaneously displaying a plurality of images such as an image previously stored and a current image on the same screen.

The above and other objects and novel features of the present invention will be apparent from the description of this specification and the accompanying drawings.

[0010]

The outline of the representative one of the inventions disclosed in the present application will be briefly described as follows.

(1) A probe that transmits and receives ultrasonic waves, a delay circuit that gives a predetermined delay time to a received signal from the probe, and a received signal whose phase is aligned by the delay circuit are added. A phasing circuit that outputs the phasing circuit, a cine memory that digitizes the signal from the phasing circuit and stores a plurality of frames in time series, and the data read from the cine memory is written for each scanning line of the ultrasonic beam to generate image data. A digital scan converter to be formed, a biological signal extractor for taking in biological information from a biological information detection sensor attached to the surface of the subject and extracting a specific biological signal, and storing the biological signal extracted by the biological signal extractor A biometric information storage memory, a synthesizing circuit for synthesizing the output of the digital scan converter and a biometric signal, and an image display device for displaying the output of the synthesizing circuit as an image. An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus was example, in which an external storage device for transmitting and receiving the cine-memory and biometric information content of the memory Memory.

(2) The ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus of the above (1) is provided with a plurality of systems of an external storage device, a cine memory and a biometric information storage memory that can be transmitted and received, and a means for displaying a plurality of images at the same time. .

(3) A probe that transmits and receives ultrasonic waves, a delay circuit that gives a predetermined delay time to a received signal from the probe, and a received signal whose phase is aligned by the delay circuit are added. And a demodulation circuit that extracts a signal that has undergone Doppler shift caused by the movement of blood in the subject from the signal from the phasing circuit, and a blood flow using the output signal from the demodulation circuit. A blood flow velocity calculation circuit that calculates velocity information of the blood flow velocity and a blood flow image creation and display device that creates and displays a two-dimensional blood flow image using the blood flow information from the blood flow velocity calculation circuit. A sound wave Doppler blood flow meter, comprising a Doppler cine memory for storing the data calculated by the blood flow velocity calculation circuit, and an external storage device for transmitting and receiving the data stored in the Doppler cine memory. is there.

[0014]

According to the above-mentioned means, since the digital data from each memory is directly transmitted / received to / from the external storage device for writing to the external storage medium and reading from the external storage medium, the image data can be stored without deterioration.・ It becomes possible to reproduce.

Further, since the scanning line data for one frame is smaller than the image data for one frame, the transfer speed is improved.

Further, by inputting the data stored in the cine memory, it is possible to observe a plurality of time phase images at the same time. For example, an image before treatment and an image after treatment can be simultaneously displayed on the same screen. Playback can be displayed.
Thereby, the diagnosis efficiency can be improved.

[0017]

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described in detail with reference to the attached screen.

In all the drawings for explaining the embodiments, parts having the same functions are designated by the same reference numerals, and the repeated description thereof will be omitted.

(Embodiment 1) FIG. 1 is a block configuration diagram showing a schematic configuration of Embodiment 1 of an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to the present invention, in which 1 is a probe, 2 is an ultrasonic transceiver, and 3 is an analog. Digital (A / D) converter, 4 cine memory, 5 first switcher, 6 scan converter, 7 synthesis circuit, 8 digital / analog (D / A) converter, 9 image display device, Reference numeral 11 is a sensor (electrode) of a biological information detecting device such as an electrocardiograph or a heart sound meter, 12 is a biological signal extractor for extracting a specific biological signal from biological information, 13 is a memory for storing biological signals, and 14 is a second switch. Container, 15 is an external storage device, 1
An external storage medium 6 is a magnetic disk, a magnetic tape, a magneto-optical disk, a floppy disk, or the like. In all the drawings of the embodiments, a control device for controlling the operation of each element is omitted for simplification of the drawings.

The probe 1 is for mechanically or electronically performing beam scanning to transmit and receive ultrasonic waves to a subject. Although not shown, there is an ultrasonic wave source. In addition, a plurality of transducers that receive reflected echoes are built in.

The ultrasonic wave transmitting / receiving section 2 sends a drive pulse to the probe 1 to generate an ultrasonic wave and processes a received reflected echo signal.
(Block configuration diagram showing a schematic configuration of the ultrasonic transmission / reception unit 2)
As shown in FIG. 5, a wave transmission circuit 22 that applies a drive pulse for ultrasonic wave ejection by giving a predetermined delay time to each of the vibration elements 14 _{1 to} 14 _n in the probe 1, and each vibration of the probe 1. Child 14
₁ to 14 _n via the switch group 16A for switching only group of transducer elements are sequentially selected from among the, reception from a group of transducer elements of each transducer element 14 ₁ to 14 _n of the probe 1 A plurality of amplifiers 17a to 17e for inputting a signal, increasing the gain with time, and correcting the signal strength according to the measurement depth.
From a plurality of delay circuits 18a to 18e that give a predetermined delay time to the output signals from the amplifiers 17a to 17e, and an adder 19 that adds the received signals whose phases are aligned by these delay circuits 18a to 18e. Phasing circuit 20
And a detector 21 for detecting the signal subjected to the phasing addition in the phasing circuit 20, the amplifiers 17a to 17e and the delay circuit 1.
It is composed of a control device (CPU) 23 for controlling 8a to 18e.

The A / D converter 3 includes the ultrasonic wave transmitting / receiving section 2
The signal output from is converted into a digital signal. The cine memory 4 stores the ultrasonic data digitized by the A / D converter 3 for a plurality of frames in time series for each scanning line of the ultrasonic beam.

The first switching unit 5 selects either the ultrasonic data digitized by the A / D converter 3 or the data stored in the cine memory 4, and the scan converter 6 described later receives the data. It is for giving away.

The scan converter 6 is an A / D converter 3
Or to convert the data output from the cine memory 4 for each ultrasonic beam inspection line into tomographic image data,
A known one is used as the scan converter 6.

The bio-signal extractor 12 extracts a specific bio-signal from the bio-information of the sensor (electrode) 11 of the bio-information detecting device attached to the surface of the subject. Signal is taken in to detect an electrocardiographic waveform and the like, and a known one is used as the biological signal extractor 12.

The bio-signal storage memory 13 stores the bio-signal information such as the electrocardiographic waveform detected by the bio-signal extractor 12.

The second switcher 14 performs the same operation as the first switcher 5, selects either the data of the bio-signal part 12 or the data of the bio-signal storage memory 13 and synthesizes it later. It is for passing data to the circuit 7.

The synthesizing circuit 7 is a circuit for synthesizing the tomographic image data created by the scan converter 6 and the biological information. The data synthesized by the synthesis circuit 7 is converted into an analog signal by the D / A converter 8 and a tomographic image or biological information is displayed on the image display device 9.

The external storage device 15 writes the data stored in the cine memory 4 and the biological signal storage memory 13 to an external storage medium (eg, magneto-optical disk) 16 or reads the data from the external storage medium 16. , The cine memory 4 and the biological signal storage memory 13
Or write to.

The operation of the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to the first embodiment will be described below. In the case of normal operation, the reflected echo processed by the ultrasonic wave transmitting / receiving unit 2 is directly input from the A / D converter 3 to the scan converter 6 and displayed on the image display device 9 as a real-time tomographic image.

Further, the cine memory 4 has an A / D converter 3
The received data for each scanning line of the ultrasonic beam output from the device is stored for a plurality of frames. Thus, for example, in the diagnosis of the heart, the real-time image and the cine memory reproduced image can be displayed simultaneously in synchronization with the electrocardiographic waveform, so that a tomographic image from another angle can be observed.

The data in the cine memory 4 and the bio-signal storage memory 13 can be stored in the external storage medium 16 through the external storage device 15. Now, let's consider the amount of data to be stored. For example, when a viewing angle of 90 degrees is set using a sector type probe, the number of scanning lines is 1.
23 lines, 30 frames per second. In order to store it as image data, the resolution is 512 bits in the vertical and horizontal directions, and one dot has a resolution of 8 bits, and the amount of data per second is 7.5 megabits (MB). On the other hand, when saving the data in the cine memory, one scan line has 512 dots,
If the data amount of 8 bits per dot is 1.8 per second
It becomes megabit (MB), which is about 1/4 of that of storing image data.

Similarly, when the viewing angle is 15 degrees, the number of scanning lines is 21.
This is 182 frames per second, which is 45.5 megabits (MB) for image data and 1.9 megabits (MB) for cine memory data, making the difference noticeable and saving data efficiently. Playback is possible.

Conventionally, the data interpolated by the scan converter was stored, but in the first embodiment, since the actual data is stored by the cine memory 4, the data can be processed into various data. Become. This makes it possible to easily extract the change in the image and change the magnification.

(Embodiment 2) FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing the schematic arrangement of an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to Embodiment 2 of the present invention. 41, 42, to 4n are first to nth cine memories,
Reference numerals 131, 132, to 13n are memories for storing biological signals.

The operation of the second embodiment will be described below with reference to FIG. 3, omitting a part of the same operation as in FIG. FIG.
In, the ultrasonic signal converted into a digital signal by the A / D converter 3 is stored from the first cine memory 41 to the nth cine memory 4n at a timing given by a controller (not shown). At this time, the biological signal at the same timing as that of the first cine memory 41 is stored in the first biological signal storage memory 131. Similarly, the other biometric memories operate in synchronization with the corresponding cine memories.

Each memory can exchange data with the external storage medium 16 through the external storage device 15. Further, the data in the cine memories 41 to 4n are input to the scan converter 6 through the switch 5. Since the scan converter 6 is improved so that the data contents of the respective cine memories can be reproduced simultaneously, a plurality of tomographic images can be reproduced simultaneously on the image display device 9. For example, data of three months ago, one month ago, and one week ago can be simultaneously displayed on the same screen.

(Third Embodiment) FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing the schematic arrangement of an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to the third embodiment of the present invention. 17 is a Doppler processing unit, 18 is a cine memory for Doppler, and 19 is a third. It is a switch.

As shown in FIG. 5, the Doppler processing unit 17 emits a demodulation circuit 171 that outputs a signal that has undergone Doppler shift caused by movement in the subject from the received signal processed by the ultrasonic transmission / reception unit 2. And an A / D converter 172 for digitizing the Doppler signal from the demodulation circuit 171 and the A / D converter
Based on the Doppler signal from the converter 172, a filter circuit 173 that removes the low-speed Doppler shift component caused by the movement of the living body organ, and a secondary signal using the output signal from this filter circuit 173 and using the blood flow velocity information. And a blood flow image creation and display device 174 for creating a blood flow image.

The fourth embodiment is an improvement of the conventional ultrasonic Doppler blood flow meter. As shown in FIG. 4, the ultrasonic signal obtained by the ultrasonic transmitting / receiving unit 2 is sent to the Doppler processing unit 17. To be In the Doppler processing unit 17, a frequency shift component due to the Doppler effect of ultrasonic waves is detected to form a Doppler mode image,
It is converted into a digital signal by the built-in A / D converter. This signal is stored in the Doppler cine memory 18 or directly input to the third switching device 19. The third switch 19 selects the signal from the Doppler processing unit 17 or the signal from the Doppler cine memory 18 and sends the signal to the scan converter 6 and the synthesis circuit 7.

The ultrasonic signal input from the ultrasonic transmitting / receiving unit 2 to the A / D converter 3 is stored in the cine memory 4 or directly input to the first switching unit 5. The first switch 5 selects the signal from the A / D converter 3 or the signal from the cine memory 4 and sends the signal to the scan converter 6. In the scan converter 6, the A / D
An image is formed by combining the tomographic image formed by the signal from the converter 3 and the Doppler image formed by the signal from the Doppler processing unit 17. The synthesis circuit 7 is the scan converter 6
And a Doppler signal from the third switching device 19 or a biological signal (not shown) are combined. The image combined by the combining circuit 7 is converted into an analog signal by the D / A converter 8 and displayed as an image on the image display device 9. The external storage device 15 writes the data stored in the cine memory 4 or the cine memory for Doppler 18 to an external storage medium 16 such as a magneto-optical disk, or reads the data from the external storage medium 16, and the cine memory 4 or the Doppler memory 18 is read. Control for writing to the cine memory 18 is performed.

As described above, according to the third embodiment, the digital data from the cine memory 4 and the Doppler cine memory 18 can be directly transmitted / received to / from the external storage device 15 and directly written / read to / from the external storage medium 16. , It becomes possible to save without deterioration of image quality.

Further, it is possible to obtain the same effect as that of the first embodiment.

Although the present invention has been specifically described based on the embodiments, the present invention is not limited to the above embodiments, and it goes without saying that various modifications can be made without departing from the scope of the invention. .

The effects obtained by the typical ones of the inventions disclosed in the present application will be briefly described as follows.

(1) Since the cine memory or the cine memory for Doppler directly transmits / receives data to / from the external storage device to perform writing to the external storage medium and reading from the external storage medium,
It is possible to efficiently store and reproduce tomographic images, biological signals, and Doppler images without deterioration of image quality.

(2) Since the cine memory stores the actual data, the data can be processed into various data. Thereby, for example, the change amount of the image can be extracted to easily change the magnification.

(3) Since the scanning line data for one frame is smaller than the image data for one frame, the transfer speed can be improved.

(4) Since images of a plurality of time phases, for example, images before and after treatment are simultaneously observed on the same screen, the diagnostic efficiency can be improved.

[Brief description of drawings]

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

FIG. 2 is a block configuration diagram showing a schematic configuration of an ultrasonic transmission / reception unit of the first embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of a second embodiment of the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a block configuration diagram showing a schematic configuration of an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to a third embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a block configuration diagram showing a schematic configuration of an ultrasonic transmission / reception unit of a third embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a block configuration diagram showing a schematic configuration of a conventional ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus.

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Probe 2 Ultrasonic wave transmission / reception part 3 A / D converter 4 Cine memory 5 1st switching device 6 Scan converter 7 Composite circuit 8 D / A converter 9 Image display device 10 Control device 11 Electrode 12 Biosignal extraction circuit 13 Bio-signal storage memory 14 Second switcher 14 _{1 to} 14 _n Probe element 15 External storage device 16 External storage medium 16A switch group 17 Doppler processing unit 17a to 17e Amplifier, Doppler processing unit 18 Doppler cine memory 19 Third Signal switching device 19A Adder 20 Phase adjusting circuit 21 Wave detector 22 Wave transmission circuit 23 Control device 41 to 4n First cine memory to nth cine memory 131 to 13n First biomedical signal storage memory to nth biological signal storage Memory 171 demodulation circuit 172 A / D converter 173 filter circuit 174 blood flow image creation and display device

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A probe for transmitting and receiving ultrasonic waves, a delay circuit for giving a predetermined delay time to a received signal from the probe, and a received signal whose phase is aligned by the delay circuit are added. A phasing circuit that outputs the phasing circuit, a cine memory that digitizes the signals from the phasing circuit and stores the frames in time series, and the data read from the cine memory is written for each scanning line of the ultrasonic beam to form image data. A digital scan converter, a biometric signal extractor that captures biometric information from a biometric information detection sensor attached to the surface of a subject and extracts a specific biometric signal, and a biometric signal that is stored by the biometric signal extractor An information storage memory, a synthesizing circuit for synthesizing the output of the digital scan converter and a biological signal, and an image display device for displaying the output of the synthesizing circuit as an image are provided. A ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus, an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus characterized by comprising an external storage device for transmitting and receiving the cine-memory and biometric information content of the memory Memory. 2. The ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a plurality of systems including a cine memory and a biometric information storage memory that can be transmitted to and received from the external storage device, and a means for simultaneously displaying a plurality of images. apparatus. 3. A probe for transmitting and receiving ultrasonic waves, a delay circuit for giving a predetermined delay time to a received signal from the probe, and a received signal whose phase is aligned by the delay circuit are added. A phasing circuit for outputting, a demodulation circuit for extracting a signal from the signal from the phasing circuit which has undergone a Doppler shift caused by the movement of blood in the subject, and an output signal from the demodulation circuit An ultrasonic wave including a blood flow velocity calculation circuit that calculates velocity information, and a blood flow image creation and display device that creates and displays a two-dimensional blood flow image using the blood flow information from the blood flow velocity calculation circuit. A Doppler blood flow meter, comprising: a Doppler cine memory for storing the data calculated by the blood flow velocity calculation circuit; and an external storage device for transmitting and receiving the data stored in the Doppler cine memory. An ultrasonic Doppler blood flow meter.