JPS6297537A - Ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] This bulletin contains application data before electronic filing, so abstract data is not recorded.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention (a) Industrial Application Field The present invention emits ultrasonic pulses into a living body and utilizes tomographic data obtained from ultrasound echoes reflected from the living body and the ultrasound Doppler effect. The present invention relates to an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus that displays at least one of blood flow velocity data.

(b) Prior art and its problems Conventionally, for example, when diagnosing blood flow dynamics inside the heart, the ultrasonic pulsed Doppler method has been widely applied. When displaying blood flow velocity distribution in color using this ultrasound pulsed Doppler method, ultrasound pulses are emitted into a living body at predetermined time intervals, and echo signals based on ultrasound echoes reflected from the living body are used. While collecting tomographic data, a Doppler signal is extracted by phase-detecting the echo signal, and the extracted Doppler signal is subjected to fast Fourier transform (FF').
TI and calculate the power spectrum. Next, the average blood flow velocity is calculated for each part within the body from this power spectrum.

Corresponding to the positive or negative direction of this calculated average blood flow velocity, for example, if the blood flow is approaching the emitted ultrasound beam, the color will be red, and if it is moving away, the color will be blue. By giving two hues and giving the brightness of each hue corresponding to the size of the average blood flow velocity,
The blood flow velocity distribution is displayed in color superimposed on the tomographic image of FIG. 5 based on the previously collected tomographic data.

In such blood flow dynamics or tomographic image diagnosis,
It is important to know in which phase of the heartbeat the abnormal blood flow, abnormal valve movement, or abnormal wall movement occurs, and the R of the ECG signal
The current practice was to use the wave as a reference, determine the time phase based on the delay time, and repeatedly display images of a specific cardiac time phase. In this case, only a specific temporal phase is displayed on the monitor. Therefore, when performing diagnosis in each temporal phase, the diagnostic image for each temporal phase must be displayed by changing the delay time setting. Observations have to be repeated, which is tedious, and it is difficult to understand changes over time.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned points, and provides an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus capable of diagnosing blood flow dynamics or tomographic images in each time phase without changing delay time settings many times. The purpose is to

(c) Means for Solving the Problems In the present invention, in order to achieve the above-mentioned object, multiple time phases are set based on biological information signals, and ultrasonic pulses are sent into the living body for each time phase. In an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus that displays at least one of tomographic data and blood flow velocity data obtained from ultrasonic echoes emitted and reflected from the living body, each pixel of a monitor displays a diagnostic image whose address is based on the data. a digital scan converter having a frame memory that individually corresponds to a frame memory, and an address conversion circuit that converts a polar coordinate address based on sector scanning of the data with respect to the frame memory into an XY coordinate address;
a reference position designation register for specifying a reference position of the write address of the data for each time phase for the address conversion circuit; and a reduction rate for the address conversion circuit in accordance with the display size of the diagnostic image. and a display size specification register, and the digital scan converter is configured to display a diagnostic image for each time phase in correspondence with each divided area of the monitor divided into a plurality of areas, based on the outputs of both registers. are doing.

(d) Examples Examples of the present invention will now be described in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram of one embodiment of the present invention.

In the figure, 1 is a transducer that performs sector scanning with an ultrasound beam on a living body, for example, the heart, and outputs an ultrasound echo signal obtained from inside the living body, and 2 is a transmitting circuit that outputs a drive pulse to drive the transducer 1. , 3 is a receiving circuit that receives the echo signal from the transducer l. In the transmitting circuit 2, the direction in which the ultrasonic beam is transmitted, the timing of the transmitting, and the like are controlled by the control circuit 12.

4 is a tomographic signal detection circuit for detecting and amplifying the echo signal from the receiving circuit 3 to obtain tomographic data; 5 is a Doppler signal detecting circuit for phase-detecting the echo signal from the receiving circuit 3 to detect a Doppler signal; 6 Reference numeral denotes an average flow velocity calculation circuit that calculates an average flow velocity based on the Doppler signal, 7 a color code conversion circuit that converts the flow direction or velocity into a color code, 8 a digital scan converter, and 9 a CRT serving as a monitor. In the color code conversion circuit 7,
For example, when the blood flow approaches the emitted ultrasound beam, it gives two different hues, such as red when the blood flow approaches, and blue when it goes away. Convert to color code to give hue brightness.

In the present invention, as shown in FIG. 2, a plurality of time phases (16 in this embodiment) are set based on the R wave of the ECG signal as a biological information signal, and a diagnostic image corresponding to each time phase is created. C
In order to display in each of the 16 divided areas of RT9,
a reference position designation register lO for setting a reference position on the frame memory for displaying diagnostic images for each time phase;
A display size designation register 11 is provided for reducing the display size to a desired display size (1/16 in this embodiment). The control circuit 12 provides the display size to the display size designation register 11, and also provides the reference position for each time phase to the reference position designation register 10. Assuming that the interval between heart beats is 1 second, each time phase is set at an interval of 64 m5. The digital scan converter 8 displays diagnostic images corresponding to each time phase on the divided areas of the CRT 9, as described later, based on the outputs of both registers 10 and 11.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing details of this digital scan converter 8. This digital scan converter 8 includes a frame memory 13 in which color code data or tomographic data is written, and each address of this frame memory 13 individually corresponds to each pixel of the CRT 9 that displays a diagnostic image. . Therefore, specifying the address of the frame memory 13 is equivalent to specifying the address of the frame memory 13 as is.
The display position on T9 will be specified.

+4 is the polar coordinate address (r) of the color code data or tomographic data for the frame memory 13.

an address conversion circuit that converts θ) into an XY coordinate address;
15 is a write data register, 16 is a multiplexer, 1
7 is a television scanning signal generation circuit, 18 is a read address counter, 19 is a read data register, 20 is a read data register, 20 is a color brightness level conversion circuit, 21
is a television signal generation circuit.

In the address conversion circuit 14, polar coordinates (r.

The color code data address or the tomographic data address given by θ) is converted into an XY coordinate address.

In this conversion, for example, when specifying point P (Px, Py) of the frame memory 13 and displaying a diagnostic image on the CRT 9 corresponding to this frame memory 13 with a reduction ratio of 1, the reference point Q Using the coordinates (Xo, Yo), Px=Xo++・rsinθ Py=Yo+Kt−rcosθ will be calculated.

In the present invention, in order to simultaneously display diagnostic images of each of the 16 time phases (0 to 15) in FIG.
The information is written in the storage areas 13a to 13p, respectively. For example, if the size is set to 1/16, P, point (px+
, py+), P Xl ” X H+ K 2 ” rs1110P
yt=Y++, @rcO9θ However, calculate Kt=/4. At this time, (X,, Yo are the coordinates of the point Q, and are given from the reference position specification register 10, and the reduction ratio is given from the display size specification register 11. This reference position is set for each time phase. The memory areas 13a to 13tap are sequentially given from the reference position designation register 1O, and the storage areas 13a to tap are sequentially designated as addresses for data of each time phase.Color code data or tomographic data is written to this calculated address. .

In this way, the data of each time phase is stored in the frame memory 13.
Since the information is sequentially written into each of the storage areas 13a to 13p, when displaying, the 16 rectangular divided areas 93 to 13 of the CRT 9 corresponding to the frame memory 13 are written, as shown in FIG.
A tomographic image or a diagnostic image of blood flow dynamics corresponding to each time phase (0 to 15) in FIG. 2 is displayed on each of 9p. This makes it possible to observe diagnostic images at each time phase without the troublesome task of changing the delay time as in the conventional example.

In addition, in the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus of the present invention, it is of course possible to display a diagnostic image without reducing it as in the conventional example.

In the embodiment described above, either the tomographic image or the blood flow dynamics at each time phase is displayed in each of the divided regions 9a to 9p of the CRT 9. However, as an embodiment of the present invention, the blood flow dynamics and tomographic data are displayed. They may also be displayed together.

(E) Effect As described above, according to the present invention, a plurality of time phases are set based on a biological information signal, an ultrasonic pulse is emitted into the living body for each time phase, and the ultrasonic pulse reflected from the living body is In an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus that displays at least one of tomographic data and blood flow velocity data obtained from sound wave echoes, a diagnostic image for each time phase is displayed in correspondence with each of the plurality of divided regions of the monitor. Therefore, it is now possible to observe diagnostic images at each time phase without having to go through the troublesome work of changing the delay time as in the conventional case, and it is also possible to easily compare differences between time phases. becomes.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is an EC
FIG. 3 is a detailed block diagram of the digital scan converter shown in FIG. 1, FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a display example on a CRTQ, and FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a conventional display example. 8...Digital scan converter, 10...Reference position specification register, 11...Display size specification register, 9...CRTo

Claims (1)

[Claims] (1) Setting multiple time phases based on biological information signals, emitting ultrasound pulses into the living body for each time phase, and obtaining tomographic data and blood flow velocity from the ultrasound echoes reflected from the living body. In an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus that displays at least one of data, a frame memory in which each address individually corresponds to each pixel of a monitor displaying a diagnostic image based on the data, and polar coordinates based on sector scanning of the data with respect to this frame memory. a digital scan converter having an address conversion circuit that converts an address into an XY coordinate address; a reference position designation register that specifies a reference position for the write address of the data for each time phase for the address conversion circuit; A display size designation register is provided for the address conversion circuit to designate a reduction rate according to the display size of the diagnostic image, and the digital scan converter creates a diagnostic image for each time phase based on the outputs of both registers. An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus characterized in that display is performed in correspondence with each of the plurality of divided regions of the monitor.