JPS5832981B2 - Ultrasonic diagnostic image display device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention is an ultrasonic diagnostic device that emits ultrasonic waves into a living body, receives echo signals from inside the body, and observes the movement of the heart. -Relates to an ultrasonic diagnostic image display device that can simultaneously observe biological information such as a phonocardiogram.

Since ultrasound is non-invasive and non-invasive to the human body,
I feel that it can be applied to the medical field.

In particular, high-speed real-time imaging has become possible with a device called a B-scope that obtains two-dimensional images of a living body, making it possible to observe the movement of valves and walls within the heart.

In order to perform detailed diagnosis based on the contraction, diastole, or transition state of the heart, it is necessary to record still images at each time phase.

Furthermore, if biological information such as an electrocardiogram, phonocardiogram, and carotid artery wave diagram can be recorded simultaneously with heart movements, the relationship between these can be observed and useful diagnostic information can be provided.

Now, such biological information changes from moment to moment, and one heartbeat usually lasts about one second, and in an electrocardiogram, various peaks from P waves to T waves appear between heartbeats.

On the other hand, tomography is displayed at a rate of, for example, 40 screens/second, which is much faster than biological information.

Therefore, in order to simultaneously display a tomographic image captured by ultrasound signals and biological information such as an electrocardiogram, the biological information such as the electrocardiogram is usually stored in memory at an appropriate sampling rate in advance, and when displaying the tomographic image, This memory allows for faster reading and simultaneous display.

That is, scanning rate conversion is performed via memory.

Furthermore, in order to display which time phase of the tomographic image of the biological information is displayed at the same time, the tomographic image of the last time phase of the biological information is normally displayed.

FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of commonly used digital scanning rate conversion, taking an electrocardiogram signal as an example.

An input electrocardiogram signal (ECG) is input to an A/D converter 1.

The A/D command of the A/D converter 1 is determined so as not to impair the frequency components of the ECG signal, and is set to 5 ms, for example.

This A/D converter output is provided to the B input of switch 2.

Further, the A input of the switch 2 is connected to the serial output of the digital memory 3 to be shifted.

Further, the output of the digital memory 3 is connected to a D/A converter 4.

The digital memory capacity at this time is determined by the number of heartbeats to be displayed at one time and the sampling rate, and when there are two heartbeats, it is 400 words based on the above conditions.

Now, with this configuration, the input of the digital memory to be shifted is determined by the switch 2, and the B side is selected when storing the A/D conversion input, and the A side is selected when reading from the digital memory for display. In the former case, the final output of the digital memory is flushed out and new information is constantly added to the digital memory, and about 2 seconds of data is always stored.

In the latter case, the data in the memory is shifted in a ring shape and returns to its original state after being read once.

This is necessary because, for example, it takes about 2 seconds to re-accumulate two heartbeats, and if you try to display it during that time, you will not be able to obtain a complete electrocardiogram waveform.

FIG. 2 shows an example of the timing relationship between storage and readout.

In FIG. 2, a is the storage timing, and b is the readout timing.

In addition, a tomographic image taken by another means is displayed on the CRT display 5, and then a sawtooth wave signal is input to the X deflection axis of the CRT display 5, and the output of the D/A converter is input to the Y deflection axis. On the display, a tomographic image and an electrocardiogram waveform at that time can be observed as shown in FIG.

With the above-described configuration, even when a cardiac tomogram is displayed at a high speed of 40 frames per second, it is possible to simultaneously display a low frequency signal of ECG for 2 seconds.

Furthermore, the relationship between the tomographic image and the biological information becomes clearer by time phasing.

However, when using the conventional time alignment method described above, the time point at which the tomographic image was taken is always displayed only at the end of the biological information, so the biological information after the time when the tomographic image was taken cannot be displayed at the same time, so it cannot be used as medical information. is flawed.

In particular, when each instantaneous tomographic image is recorded as a hard copy such as a photograph, multiple images may be taken in synchronization with the heartbeat (double or more images are always taken when performing intermittent scanning).

In such cases, the heart rate included in the displayed electrocardiogram and other biological information increases as the number of multiplexed measurements increases.
During each phase of the multiplex, only the last phase of the multiplex is displayed; in other words, in the simplest case of doublex, the time point at which the tomographic image was taken is recognized by the observer. This is the time point at which the latter double tomographic image was taken, and the time point at which the former tomographic image was taken is not displayed at all.

Therefore, if the subject is suffering from arrhythmia, the time phase of the multiplex signals will be out of sync, but there is a drawback that this cannot be recognized.

In order to eliminate such drawbacks, it is sufficient that the time point of tomographic image acquisition can always be displayed in the biological information even when multiple images are taken, and the present invention achieves such a request with a very simple configuration. With the goal.

In order to achieve this objective, the present invention provides, in addition to a means for storing biological information, a second storage means that detects an arbitrary time phase of the biological information and stores this time phase in synchronization with the biological information. The present invention is characterized in that the tomographic image and the contents of the biological information storage means in the above-mentioned time phase are displayed on the display, and at the same time, a mark is added to the biological information according to the contents of the second storage means.

The present invention will be explained below using examples.

FIG. 3 shows an embodiment of the present invention.

Note that in this embodiment, a sector scan method is used to create a tomographic image.

1 to 5 in the figure are the same as the means described above.

In addition to this, a detector 6 detects the steepest R wave of the ECG waveform.
(Many such circuits are known.

) and a variable delay time generation circuit 7 which receives the trigger output of this detector 60 and generates a desired delay time from the R wave, creates a time phase from the time of detection of the desired R wave.

The output signal of the variable delay time generation circuit 7 triggers a pulser 8 to create a timing pulse.

The timing pulse of this pulser 8 is, for example, 30 m5.

This pulse is guided to a switch 2' and a digital memory 3' having the same configuration as the switch 2 and digital memory 3 described above.

The digital memory 3' is configured with the same number of words as the digital memory 3, and stores the output of the pulser 8 at the same timing as the digital memory 3, and the output of this digital memory 3' is blocked at the same timing as the ECG waveform output. Passing through the ranking switching circuit 9, the CRT display 5
is applied to the blanking axis of.

At the time of this output, the output of digital memory 3' is switched to switch 2'.
As a result, the data is shifted in a ring shape, and like the ECG waveform digital memory 3 described above, once it is read out, it returns to its original state.

This read control signal has the waveform shown in FIG. 2, and is applied to the switching circuits 2 and 2'.

FIG. 5 shows the accumulated waveforms of the digital memos IJ 3 and 3'.

a is the ECG waveform data stored in the digital memory 3 at a certain instant, and b is the output waveform data of the pulser 8 stored in the digital memory 3' at that time.

As shown in FIG. 5, a pulse signal having a delay time T from the R wave is input to the digital memory 3'.

Here, the number of words for which the accumulated data is 1 is determined by
It is determined from the time width during which the output from the pulser 8 is 1 and the sampling rate for inputting the ECG waveform.

From the above, the output waveform of digital memory 3 is CR
When applied to the Y axis of the T display 5, the blanking axis of the CRT display 5 has a digital memory 3'
The output of E is applied to the X-axis of the CRT display.
Sawtooth wave for CG, when a constant voltage is applied to the Z axis, CRT
On the screen of the display 5, an ECG waveform marked with a fixed delay time from the R wave can be displayed.

Next, a case will be described in which the time phases of the cardiac tomographic image and the ECG mark at each instant are simultaneously displayed and recorded as a note copy such as a photograph.

First, the output signal of the blanking switching circuit 9 is set to 1 by manual operation. It works and becomes 1.

) The screen of the CRT display 5 is now in a blanking state.

At this time, open the camera shutter.

Now, in order to deflect the tomographic image on the CRT display 5 into sectors, a sawtooth wave for tomographic images for the X-axis circumference and Y-axis (generally, the sawtooth wave is obtained by passing it through a sin and cos converter).

) is being created. When the timing pulse from the pulser 8 is applied to the sector scanning circuit 10, the X and Y deflection outputs for the tomographic image return to the initial state in synchronization with the timing pulse.

At the same time, a sawtooth wave for ECG (e.g. 200 μS)
One thing.

), at that time, for only 200 μs after the timing pulse is applied in the ECG and tomogram sawtooth wave switching circuits 12 and 13, the ECG is passed through the Y axis, and the ECG sawtooth wave is passed through the X axis. Pass through waves.

Further, the output of the digital memory 3' synchronized with the ECG is applied to the blanking axis Bf of the CRT.

At this time, a signal is sent from the sector scan circuit 10 to the wave receiving circuit 11 using the time during which the ECG X sawtooth wave of the sector scan circuit 10 is output, and inhibits the output of the wave receiving circuit 11 to maintain a constant voltage. is CRT display 5-2
Join the signal.

The output of the digital memories 3 and 31 is 200μ
When 400 words of data are output one after another at high speed during S, the ECG waveform marked on the screen of the CRT display 5 is displayed for 200 μS and photographed.

Next, the sawtooth wave for tomographic images is passed through the sawtooth wave switching circuit 12.13, and the C to D shown on the CRT display 50 is
Start sector scan towards.

At this time, a tomographic image receiving circuit 11 that produces the brightness of the tomographic image (many types of such circuits are well known, so their description is omitted).

), a timing pulse is applied from the sector scanning circuit 10, the brightness of the tomographic image in the same direction as the sector scanning direction is output, and the tomographic image is created as two signals on the CRT display 5.

As described above, when the timing pulse signal of the pulser 8 is sent to the blanking switching circuit 9, the output signal of the blanking switching circuit becomes O and the CRT display/I 5
The blanking state of CRT display 5 is released and the CRT display 5
The ECG marked as shown on the screen of
One frame of cardiac tomographic image when marked on ECG (
Only ECG and tomographic images (C to D) on the screen of the CRT display 5 are displayed, and then the screen of the CRT display 5 returns to a blanking state.

When one frame scan is completed, the sector scan circuit 10
One frame END pulse is generated from , and when this one frame END pulse is applied to the blanking circuit 9, the fourth
As shown in the figure, the signal is input to the flip-flop circuit 9', and the output of the flip-flop circuit 9' becomes 1 and is sent to the OR circuit r, and the CRT display 5 enters a blanking state.

When the timing pulse from the pulser 8 is input to the flip-flop circuit 9', the output of the flip-flop circuit 9' becomes O and is sent to the OR circuit r.

At this time, the digital memory output is simultaneously sent to the OR circuit r through the inhibit circuit 9''.

The digital memory output of the ECG mark point is 1 and CR
Displayed on T display 5.

Therefore, only the mark points of the ECG on the CRT display 5 are blanked.

Thereafter, sector scanning is performed and the output of the flip-flop circuit 9' becomes 1 due to the one frame end pulse, resulting in the blanking state as described above.

In addition, when multiplexing is performed in photographing, the number of times of multiplexing is set in advance in the inhibit circuit 9'l', and the output of the digital memory 3' is passed through in synchronization with the timing pulse only for the final frame. .

That is, only when the set value of the inhibit circuit 9'' is shifted down to 1, the marked ECG is displayed on the CRT, and sector scanning is performed to display a tomographic image.

Thereafter, even if a timing pulse is input, the screen of the CRT display 5 remains blanked.

By performing these operations, the desired time phase (
A multiplex cardiac tomogram is taken as a photograph or the like at the marked points).

Therefore, it is possible to recognize that the cardiac tomographic image is the tomographic image at that time by the marks (marks) in the electrocardiogram waveform.

In this example, the timing pulse was created by detecting the R wave of the electrocardiogram, but in the case of a phonocardiogram, the timing pulse may be similarly used from the R wave of the electrocardiogram, or from the phonocardiogram itself. Good too.

In that case, the display of marks etc. are the same as in the above embodiment.

Furthermore, although the case of interruption has been illustrated as a mark, a change in brightness or the like may also be given.

Furthermore, although the explanation has been made using the sector scan method as a method of creating tomographic images using ultrasound, it goes without saying that other high-speed imaging methods such as the linear scan method may also be used.

By using the present invention described above, it is possible to clarify the time phase between a tomographic image of a heart or the like and biological information such as an electrocardiogram waveform with a very simple configuration, and even in the case of double imaging, etc. Each time phase can be identified, and even in cases of arrhythmia, the time phases can be clarified, which is advantageous in diagnosing ultrasound cardiac tomographic images.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an explanatory diagram for scan rate conversion, FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of a time chart at this time, and FIG.
FIG. 4 is a diagram showing one embodiment of the present invention and a diagram showing its essential parts, and FIG. 5 is a diagram for explaining the present invention.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus that images and displays the dynamics of a subject's heart, etc. in real time using ultrasonic signals, comprising: a first storage means for accumulating biological information; a second storage means for detecting an arbitrary time phase of the information and storing the time phase in synchronization with the biological information; and displaying the observed image of the movement and the biological information from the first storage means on a display. means for simultaneously displaying the imaging time phase of the observation image on the display by adding an interruption period to the biological information from the first storage means using the output of the second storage means; An ultrasonic diagnostic image display device characterized by the addition of: 2. In the ultrasonic diagnostic image display device according to claim 1, when the dynamic state is imaged and displayed in a plurality of time phases, the first and second storage means store data during those periods. and the control means has a function of displaying the contents of the first and second storage means prior to the last time phase among the plurality of time phases. Diagnostic image display device. 3. The ultrasonic diagnostic image display device according to claims 1 and 2, wherein the first and second storage means are one-dimensional storage means. Image display device. 4. In the ultrasonic diagnostic image display device according to claim 3, the -dimensional storage means is further provided with means for returning the contents to the original state when the reading of the contents is completed. An ultrasonic diagnostic image display device characterized by: