WO2021223237A1

WO2021223237A1 - Method for determining blood flow morphology, ultrasonic device, and computer storage medium

Info

Publication number: WO2021223237A1
Application number: PCT/CN2020/089256
Authority: WO
Inventors: 沈莹莹; 杜宜纲; 李雷
Original assignee: 深圳迈瑞生物医疗电子股份有限公司
Priority date: 2020-05-08
Filing date: 2020-05-08
Publication date: 2021-11-11
Also published as: CN114173674A

Abstract

A method for determining blood flow morphology, an ultrasonic device, and a computer storage medium. The method comprises: emitting an ultrasonic beam in at least two directions to a target region comprising a blood vessel (S1101); receiving a returned ultrasonic echo to obtain an ultrasonic echo signal in each of the at least two directions (S1102); determining, according to the ultrasonic echo signal in each direction, a velocity component in each direction for the velocity of a blood flow in the blood vessel (S1103); determining a vector velocity of the blood flow according to the velocity component in each direction (S1104); determining the morphology of the blood flow in the blood vessel according to the vector velocity (S140); and displaying the morphology of the blood flow in the blood vessel (S103). In this way, according to embodiments of the present invention, the morphology of a blood flow can be determined according to the velocity of the blood flow, especially the vector velocity of the blood flow, which can reflect actual conditions of the blood flow, provide more reference parameters for hemodynamic research, and provide a more accurate basis for subsequent blood flow morphology analysis.

Description

Method for determining blood flow morphology, ultrasound device and computer storage medium

Technical field

The embodiments of the present invention relate to the field of ultrasound detection, and more specifically, to a method for determining blood flow morphology, an ultrasound device, and a computer storage medium.

Background technique

There are many different flow patterns of fluids, and the blood flow in the human body will also have many different patterns. At present, the blood flow velocity obtained by traditional methods such as Color Doppler and Pulsed Wave Doppler (PW) is the projection component in the ultrasonic emission direction, because the velocity as the projection component cannot reflect the blood flow. Therefore, the shape of the blood flow determined based on the projection component is also inaccurate.

Summary of the invention

In one aspect, an embodiment of the present invention provides a method for determining blood flow morphology, the method including:

Emitting ultrasonic beams to a target area along at least two directions, the target area including blood vessels;

Receiving the ultrasonic echo of the ultrasonic beam returning from the target area to obtain an ultrasonic echo signal in each of the at least two directions;

Determining the velocity component of the blood flow in the blood vessel along each of the at least two directions according to the ultrasonic echo signals in each of the at least two directions;

Determining the vector velocity of the blood flow in the blood vessel according to the velocity components in each of the at least two directions;

Determine the shape of the blood flow in the blood vessel according to the vector velocity;

The morphology of blood flow in the blood vessel is displayed.

On the other hand, an embodiment of the present invention also provides a method for determining blood flow morphology, and the method includes:

Get the speed of blood flow in the blood vessel;

Determining the shape of blood flow in the blood vessel according to the speed;

The morphology of blood flow in the blood vessel is displayed.

In still another aspect, an embodiment of the present invention also provides an ultrasonic device, including:

Ultrasound probe

The transmission/reception selection switch is used to excite the ultrasonic probe to transmit ultrasonic beams to a target area in at least two directions via a transmitting circuit, the target area including blood vessels, and to receive the return of the ultrasonic beam from the target area Ultrasonic echo

A memory for storing programs executed by the processor;

Processor for:

Obtaining an ultrasonic echo signal along each of the at least two directions based on the ultrasonic echo;

The display is used to display the shape of the blood flow in the blood vessel.

In addition, an embodiment of the present invention also provides a computer storage medium on which a computer program is stored, and when the computer program is executed by a processor, the steps of the method for determining the blood flow pattern described in the above aspect are implemented.

It can be seen that the embodiment of the present invention can determine the shape of blood flow based on the speed of blood flow, especially the vector speed of blood flow, which can reflect the actual condition of blood flow and provide a richer reference for hemodynamic research. The parameters provide a more accurate basis for subsequent blood flow morphology analysis.

Description of the drawings

In order to explain the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present invention more clearly, the following will briefly introduce the drawings that need to be used in the description of the embodiments or the prior art. Obviously, the drawings in the following description are only some of the present invention. Embodiments, for those of ordinary skill in the art, without creative labor, other drawings can be obtained based on these drawings.

Figure 1 is a block diagram of an ultrasound device;

Figure 2 is a schematic diagram of the fluid form;

Figure 3 is a schematic flowchart of determining blood flow morphology according to an embodiment of the present invention;

Figure 4 is another schematic flowchart of determining blood flow morphology according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 5 is another schematic flowchart of determining blood flow morphology according to an embodiment of the present invention;

Fig. 6 is a schematic diagram of input and output of the classification neural network according to the embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 7 is another schematic flowchart of determining blood flow morphology according to an embodiment of the present invention; FIG.

Fig. 8 is a schematic diagram showing blood flow morphology according to an embodiment of the present invention;

Fig. 9 is another schematic diagram showing blood flow morphology according to an embodiment of the present invention;

Fig. 10 is another schematic diagram showing the blood flow morphology according to the embodiment of the present invention;

Figure 11 is a schematic diagram showing blood flow morphology according to an embodiment of the present invention;

Figure 12 is another schematic diagram showing blood flow morphology according to an embodiment of the present invention;

Figure 13 is a schematic diagram of the cardiac cycle;

Fig. 14 is another schematic diagram showing the blood flow morphology according to the embodiment of the present invention;

Fig. 15 is a schematic diagram of velocity component angle synthesis according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Detailed ways

The embodiment of the present invention provides an ultrasonic device, which can obtain more accurate blood flow morphology.

Figure 1 shows a block diagram of an ultrasound device. The ultrasound device 10 includes an ultrasound probe 110, a transmission/reception selection switch 120, a transmission circuit 160, a reception circuit 170, a memory 130, a processor 140, and a display 150. The transmission/reception selection switch 120 may excite the ultrasonic probe 110 to transmit an ultrasonic beam to the target area via the transmitting circuit 160, and receive the ultrasonic echo of the ultrasonic beam returning from the target area through the ultrasonic probe 110 via the receiving circuit 170. The processor 140 may obtain an ultrasonic echo signal based on the ultrasonic echo of the ultrasonic beam, and process the ultrasonic echo signal.

Exemplarily, the transmission/reception selection switch 120 may excite the ultrasonic probe 110 to transmit an ultrasonic beam to a target area via the transmitting circuit 160, the target area including blood vessels, and receive the ultrasonic wave returned from the target area through the ultrasonic probe 110 via the receiving circuit 170 Ultrasonic echo of the beam. The processor 140 may obtain an ultrasonic echo signal based on the ultrasonic echo; and determine the blood flow velocity in the blood vessel based on the ultrasonic echo signal; and then obtain the blood flow morphology based on the blood flow velocity.

Wherein, the blood flow velocity can be the vector velocity of the blood flow, and the vector velocity can be calculated by any method such as the spot tracking method, the transverse wave oscillation method, and the multi-angle deflection transmitting/receiving method.

Taking the vector velocity obtained by the multi-angle deflection transmitting/receiving method as an example, the transmitting/receiving selection switch 120 can excite the ultrasonic probe 110 to transmit ultrasonic beams to a target area in at least two directions via the transmitting circuit 160, and the target area includes blood vessels, and The ultrasonic echo of the ultrasonic beam returned from the target area is received by the ultrasonic probe 110 via the receiving circuit 170. The processor 140 may obtain an ultrasonic echo signal in each of the at least two directions based on the ultrasonic echo; determine the ultrasonic echo signal in each of the at least two directions according to the ultrasonic echo signal in each of the at least two directions. The velocity component of the blood flow along each of the at least two directions; the vector velocity of the blood flow in the blood vessel is determined according to the velocity component in each of the at least two directions.

Exemplarily, the processor 140 may also obtain an ultrasound echo signal based on the ultrasound echo; and obtain an ultrasound image of the target area based on the ultrasound echo signal. For example, beam synthesis, quadrature demodulation, wall filtering, etc. can be performed on the ultrasonic echo signal. The ultrasound image obtained by the processor 140 may be stored in the memory 130. And, the ultrasound image may be displayed on the display 150. Optionally, the shape of blood vessels and the like may also be displayed by the display 150.

Optionally, the display 150 in the ultrasound device 10 may be a touch display screen, a liquid crystal display screen, etc.; or the display 150 may be an independent display device such as a liquid crystal display or a TV set independent of the ultrasound device 10; or the display 150 may be Displays of electronic devices such as smartphones and tablets, etc. Wherein, the number of displays 150 may be one or more.

Optionally, the memory 130 in the ultrasound device 10 may be a flash memory card, a solid-state memory, a hard disk, or the like. It can be a volatile memory and/or a non-volatile memory, a removable memory and/or a non-removable memory, etc.

Optionally, the processor 140 in the ultrasound device 10 may be implemented by software, hardware, firmware, or any combination thereof, and may use a circuit, a single or multiple application specific integrated circuits (ASIC), or a single or multiple ASICs. A general integrated circuit, a single or multiple microprocessors, a single or multiple programmable logic devices, or any combination of the foregoing circuits and/or devices, or other suitable circuits or devices, so that the processor 140 can execute the instructions in this specification The corresponding steps of the method in each embodiment.

It should be understood that the components included in the ultrasound device 10 shown in FIG. 1 are only schematic, and may include more or fewer components. For example, the ultrasound apparatus 10 may also include input devices such as a keyboard, a mouse, a scroll wheel, a trackball, etc., and/or may include an output device such as a printer. The corresponding external input/output port can be a wireless communication module, a wired communication module, or a combination of the two. The external input/output ports can also be implemented based on USB, bus protocols such as CAN, and/or wired network protocols. The present invention is not limited to this.

Figure 2 is a schematic diagram of some types of common fluid forms. Common fluid forms include plug flow, laminar flow, vortex, turbulent, counter flow, Secondary flow, etc.

The common blood flow pattern in human blood vessels is laminar flow. Generally, when blood flows at a low speed in a blood vessel, it appears as laminar flow, and its mass points move smoothly and linearly in a direction parallel to the blood vessel. The flow velocity is largest at the center of the blood vessel and smallest near the blood vessel wall.

There may also be vortex, turbulence, reverse flow, secondary flow, etc. in the blood flow pattern in the blood vessel. The formation of vortex, turbulence, countercurrent, and secondary flow is caused by physiological structure, as well as acquired vascular disease (such as stenosis, plaque). The secondary flow as shown in Figure 2 includes a schematic diagram along section A (longitudinal section) and a schematic diagram along section B (transverse section). The secondary flow may be due to the physiological structure of blood vessel bifurcation, or it may be It is caused by the presence of lesions such as plaques.

In addition, it should be noted that the blood flow morphology can also be referred to as blood flow type, type and other terms, which are not limited in this application.

It can be seen that blood flow morphology contains information related to human physiological diseases, and related analysis and research on blood flow morphology can provide a potential basis for disease diagnosis.

The embodiment of the present invention provides a method for determining the blood flow pattern. A flowchart of the method is shown in FIG. 3, and the method includes:

S101: Obtain the speed of blood flow in the blood vessel;

S102: Determine the shape of the blood flow in the blood vessel according to the speed;

S103, displaying the form of blood flow in the blood vessel.

Exemplarily, the blood flow velocity in S101 refers to the vector velocity of the blood flow, and the vector velocity can be obtained by an ultrasound device. As shown in Fig. 4, a schematic flow chart of the method for determining the blood flow morphology includes:

S110: Transmit an ultrasonic beam to a target area, where the target area includes blood vessels;

S120, receiving the ultrasonic echo of the ultrasonic beam returning from the target area to obtain an ultrasonic echo signal;

S130: Determine the vector velocity of the blood flow in the blood vessel according to the ultrasonic echo signal;

S140: Determine the shape of the blood flow in the blood vessel according to the vector velocity;

S103, displaying the form of blood flow in the blood vessel.

In the embodiment of the present invention, the vector velocity of the blood flow can represent the actual flow state of the blood flow, and the vector velocity includes not only the magnitude but also the direction. The direction of the vector velocity of the blood flow at different positions of the blood vessel is generally different; and the direction of the vector velocity of the blood flow at the same position of the blood vessel at different times may also be different. It can be understood with reference to FIG. 3 that S101 may include S110 to S130.

As an example, the vector velocity can be obtained based on the vector blood flow imaging method of spot tracking. Which can be based on ultrasound B image data, using absolute difference summation to achieve speckle tracking. Among them, it can be calculated based on plane wave emission and spot tracking method.

As an example, the vector velocity can be obtained by the vector blood flow imaging method based on the transverse wave oscillation method. Among them, the longitudinal velocity is obtained through the traditional calculation method based on the Doppler principle, the lateral velocity is calculated by the ultrasonic sound field that generates the lateral oscillation and then based on the autocorrelation method, and then the vector velocity is obtained by merging the longitudinal and lateral velocities.

As an example, a multi-angle deflection transmitting/receiving method can be used to obtain the vector velocity. Each angle is calculated using the traditional Doppler principle to obtain the velocity component of the angle. The speed measurement results of multiple different angles are combined to obtain the actual speed size and direction, that is, the vector speed. It should be noted that each velocity component is equivalent to the projection of the vector velocity in the direction of the component. The velocity component can also be called the sub-velocity. When two or more sub-velocities of more than two angles are known, vertical lines are made by halving the divided speeds (as shown in Figure 15). According to the intersection of the two vertical lines The target position or the vector velocity of the target point can be determined.

The blood flow velocity obtained by the traditional PW is based on the velocity after angle correction. The above method for determining the vector velocity of blood flow does not require angle correction, and can obtain a more realistic velocity and direction of blood flow, which is more accurate than traditional angle correction. Speed can more accurately represent the actual flow state of blood flow.

The vector velocity mentioned in this application is the actual velocity of blood flow (such as red blood cells in the blood flow), or closer to the actual velocity of blood flow (such as red blood cells in the blood flow); its velocity direction is The actual flow direction of blood flow (such as red blood cells in the blood flow), or closer to the actual flow direction of blood flow (such as red blood cells in the blood flow); as shown in Figure 2, the direction of the vector velocity can be in the imaging plane In the interval from 0° to 360°, its direction can characterize the actual flow direction of blood flow.

Taking the multi-angle deflection transmitting/receiving method to obtain the vector velocity as an example, FIG. 5 is another schematic flowchart of determining the blood flow pattern according to the embodiment of the present invention, including:

S1101: Transmit an ultrasonic beam to a target area along at least two directions, where the target area includes blood vessels;

S1102. Receive the ultrasonic echo of the ultrasonic beam returning from the target area to obtain an ultrasonic echo signal along each of the at least two directions;

S1103: Determine the velocity component of the blood flow in the blood vessel along each of the at least two directions according to the ultrasonic echo signals along each of the at least two directions;

S1104: Determine the vector velocity of the blood flow in the blood vessel according to the velocity component in each of the at least two directions;

S103, displaying the shape of the blood flow in the blood vessel.

With reference to FIG. 3, it can be considered that S101 in FIG. 3 includes S1101 to S1104, and S102 in FIG. 3 includes S140.

Exemplarily, in S140, the shape of the blood flow in the blood vessel can be determined according to the vector velocity and the patient data as auxiliary information.

Among them, the patient data may refer to medical record information related to the patient. Exemplarily, the patient data as auxiliary information may include at least one of the following: age, medical history, examination location, and the like.

Exemplarily, the form in S140 may be any of the following: laminar flow, turbulent flow, vortex flow, counter flow, secondary flow. Optionally, a pre-trained classification neural network may be used in S140 to determine the shape of the blood flow.

With reference to Figure 6, the vector velocity can be input to the classification neural network, and the output of the classification neural network, that is, the shape of the blood flow, can be obtained. Among them, the classification neural network may be a convolutional neural network (convolutional neural network, CNN) based on deep learning.

Before the method for determining the shape of blood flow in the embodiment of the present invention, a classification neural network may be obtained through training.

A training sample set can be constructed, the training sample set includes a plurality of training samples, and each training sample has a blood flow vector velocity and has been marked with a blood flow shape. Use the training sample set to train the classification neural network until it converges.

Among them, data can be obtained from various channels or sources as training samples. For example, it can be obtained from a doctor. The doctor obtains the vector velocity of the blood flow through an ultrasound device and checks the shape of the marked blood flow through experience. For example, the vector speed can be obtained from the network or other places, and the shape can be manually labeled as a training sample.

Among them, an initial classification neural network can be constructed. For example, the classification neural network can include a convolutional layer, a pooling layer, a fully connected layer, and so on. Subsequently, the classification neural network can be trained, and a large number of iterations will be performed during the training process until the convergence completes the training. In the training process, at least one of various artificial intelligence algorithms such as backpropagation (BP), stochastic gradient descent, or learning rate attenuation can be used to optimize the network convergence, identify the type, type and distribution of blood flow, and perform Instance segmentation.

Exemplarily, a test sample set can also be constructed to verify the classification neural network after training, so that stable neural network parameters can be obtained, and the reliability of the fluid shape can be determined.

In addition, the training sample set can also be updated, such as adding new training samples. And can further update the classification neural network. As an example, it can be updated after adding a certain number of new training samples. In this way, by updating the classification neural network, the output result of the classification neural network can be made more accurate.

Exemplarily, the shape of the blood flow in the blood vessel can be determined based on the magnitude and direction of the vector velocity. As an example, the magnitude and direction of the vector velocity can be indicated by a marker with a direction indicator (for example, an arrow, a line, or a bubble, etc.). The direction of the marker can indicate the direction of the vector velocity of the blood flow corresponding to the target position. The length or size of the marker can indicate the vector velocity of the blood flow corresponding to the target position. Based on the above-mentioned artificial neural network and other artificial intelligence algorithms, feature matching can be performed on the markers contained in the target area, so as to determine the shape of the blood flow in the blood vessel. Continuing with the description shown in FIG. 2, in FIG. 2, markers with arrows are used to characterize the magnitude and direction of the vector velocity of blood flow in the blood vessel. For example, the length of the arrow represents the magnitude of the vector velocity, and the direction of the arrow represents the direction of the vector velocity. For example, for the plug flow pattern, when it is determined that the magnitude and direction of the velocity of each vector in the target area (the length and direction of the arrow shown in the figure) are basically the same, the blood flow pattern in the target area can be determined to be the plug flow pattern; for the laminar flow pattern When it is determined that the direction of the vector velocity (indicated by the arrow in the figure) in the target area is basically the same, and the vector velocity in the center area of the target area is the largest, the blood flow pattern in the target area can be determined to be laminar flow pattern; for counter-flow pattern , When it is determined that there is a large deflection (for example, forward and backward 180 degrees or close to 180 degrees deflection) in the direction of each vector velocity in the target area (indicated by the arrow in the figure), it can be determined that the blood flow pattern in the target area is a reverse flow pattern; For the secondary flow pattern, when determining the direction of each vector velocity on the longitudinal section of the target area, there are a certain number of forward and backward directions (as shown in the figure in and out) and the direction of each vector velocity on the cross section of the target area is vortex-like. , It can be determined that the blood flow pattern of the target area is the secondary flow pattern. For the determination of other blood flow patterns such as vortex and turbulence, you can refer to the above-mentioned similar methods for understanding, and will not be described in detail here.

Above, the determination of the blood flow pattern based on the vector velocity has been related to the description. It can be understood that the present application is not limited to the two-dimensional blood flow pattern shown in FIG. 2 and may also be a three-dimensional blood flow pattern. For the two-dimensional blood flow shape, it can be determined based on the two-dimensional vector velocity; for the three-dimensional blood flow shape, it can be determined based on the three-dimensional vector velocity, which is not limited here. The three-dimensional vector velocity can also be understood by referring to the relevant description of the vector velocity obtained by the vector blood flow imaging method; among them, the way of obtaining the vector velocity for multi-angle deflection transmission/reception is different from obtaining the two-dimensional vector velocity in that the three-dimensional vector velocity Velocity needs to be obtained by angular synthesis of at least three velocity components that are not in the same plane.

Now returning to FIG. 3, exemplarily, the velocity of the blood flow in S101 may be the velocity component along the ultrasonic emission direction calculated by the ultrasonic echo signal obtained by transmitting the ultrasonic wave to the blood vessel area, and the velocity component may be determined by the ultrasonic device. The obtained, as shown in Fig. 7, is a schematic flow chart of the method for determining the blood flow pattern, including:

S1301: Determine the velocity component of the blood flow in the blood vessel along the ultrasonic emission direction according to the ultrasonic echo signal;

S1401: Determine the shape of the blood flow in the blood vessel according to the velocity component;

S103, displaying the form of blood flow in the blood vessel.

With reference to FIG. 3, it can be considered that S101 in FIG. 3 includes S110 to S1301, and S102 in FIG. 3 includes S1401.

Exemplarily, in S1401, the shape of the blood flow in the blood vessel can be determined according to the velocity component combined with patient data as auxiliary information.

Exemplarily, the form in S1401 may be any one of the following: disorderly and orderly. Compared with the above-mentioned S140, it can be seen that compared with S1401, the determination of the blood flow morphology by the vector velocity is more accurate, can better reflect the actual state of the blood flow, and provide a strong basis for the subsequent blood flow morphology analysis.

Optionally, another pre-trained classification neural network may be used in S1401 to determine the shape of the blood flow. The input of this other classification neural network is the velocity component, and the output blood flow is disordered or orderly.

It is understandable that another classification neural network used in S1401 may be similar to the classification neural network in S140, for example, may include a convolutional layer, a pooling layer, a fully connected layer, and the like. Regarding another classification neural network, I will not go into details here.

In the following, S103 in each of the foregoing embodiments will be described with reference to FIGS. 8 to 14.

As an implementation manner, the form of blood flow in a specific area in the blood vessel may be displayed in S103, where the specific area may be a target area or a sub-area of the target area. Among them, the target area is all or part of the area covered by the ultrasound beam.

As an example, the form of the blood flow at each position of the blood flow in a specific area can be displayed. For example, different display modes can be used to represent different forms, where the different display modes can be colors, shading, and so on.

As shown in Figure 8, the morphology of each position in a specific area (the area framed in the figure) is displayed. Different background colors are used to indicate different morphologies. The morphologies shown include laminar flow, vortex flow and turbulent flow. form.

As another example, the form of the blood flow at each position of the blood flow in a specific area may be displayed, and the proportion of different forms may be displayed. As shown in Figure 9, the three forms of laminar flow, eddy current and turbulent flow in a specific area are shown, and the proportion of each form is shown. That is, 64.4% of the specific area is laminar flow, and the specific area 26.1% of the area is vortex, and 9.5% of the specific area is turbulence.

As another implementation manner, S103 can display the proportions of various shapes in a specific area of the blood vessel. Exemplarily, any one of the following methods may be used to display the proportions of different forms of blood flow: pie chart, bar chart, different colors, shading differences, data reports, etc. As an example, Figure 10 shows the proportions of various forms represented by a bar graph. Among them, 64.4% of the specific area is laminar flow, 26.1% of the specific area is eddy current, and the specific area is 9.5% of it is turbulent flow. It should be understood that the ratio can also be displayed in other ways, which will not be listed here.

As another implementation manner, in S103, the proportions of different forms of a specific area at multiple moments can be displayed. Table 1 below shows the proportions of each form at three different moments. Among them, T1, T2 and T3 represent three different moments.

Table I

To	T1T1	T2T2	T3T3
层流Laminar flow	64.4％64.4%	64％64%	26％26%
涡流vortex	26.1％26.1%	28％28%	42％42%
湍流Turbulence	9.5％9.5%	8％8%	32％32%

As shown in Table 1, we can see the proportions of each form at different moments. It can be understood that if the sampling interval for multiple moments is reduced and the number of samples is increased, the display can be used to characterize the change in the proportion of each form over time.

As another implementation manner, in S103, changes in the proportions of different forms of blood flow at various positions of the blood flow in a specific area may be displayed over time.

Exemplarily, the change of each ratio over time can be expressed in the form of a curve. For multiple different forms, multiple curves can be used to represent the changes in the proportion of each form over time. As an example, it may be displayed in a plurality of different coordinate systems. As another example, they can be displayed simultaneously in the same coordinate system.

As an example, the horizontal axis may represent time and the vertical axis may represent the ratio, and the ratio of the different forms of blood flow at each position of the blood flow in a specific region may be displayed as the change in the cardiac cycle.

Figure 11 shows the changes in the proportions of laminar flow, vortex flow and turbulent flow over time. In addition, it can further display the proportions of each morphology at a specific time (such as t in Figure 11). At time t in Figure 11, the proportions of laminar flow, vortex flow and turbulent flow are 26% and 42 respectively. % And 32%. Specifically, the proportion of laminar flow can be determined according to the proportion between the abscissa and the solid line, the proportion of eddy current can be determined according to the proportion between the solid line and the broken line, and the proportion of turbulence can be determined according to the proportion between the broken line and 100% . Optionally, the specific time (t) may represent the current display frame.

Optionally, a speed curve, a heart rate curve or other curves obtained by statistics along time can also be displayed in the same coordinate system. In other words, time can be represented on the horizontal axis, and the vertical axis can be scaled, showing the proportions of each shape, and also displaying the speed curve, heart rate curve or other curves obtained by statistics along the time, so as to determine the shape of blood flow and The relationship between speed, heart rate or other parameters.

As shown in Fig. 12, on the basis of Fig. 11, the speed curve, heart rate curve or other curves obtained by statistics along the time are also displayed. Combining the speed curve, heart rate curve or other curves obtained by statistics along time, Figure 12 shows that the change in the proportion of laminar flow is basically the same as the speed curve, heart rate curve or other curves obtained by statistics along time (sometimes may also be inconsistent) For example, the blood vessel velocity curve far away from the heart has a lag compared to the heart rate). Since the blood flow of the human body fluctuates according to the heart rate cycle, this can more clearly reflect the proportion of the shape, the blood flow velocity, and the phase of the heart rate. Or the correspondence between other parameters.

It should be noted that although different shadings are used to represent different shapes in Figures 11 and 12, the present invention is not limited to this. For example, different colors, the same shading, or the same color, and different shadings can be used. .

As another implementation manner, in S103, the corresponding proportions of various forms of blood flow in blood vessels in a specific area within a preset period of time can also be counted; various types of blood flow in blood vessels in a specific area can be displayed. Corresponding proportions of different forms within the preset duration.

Exemplarily, the preset duration may be assumed to be the length of time between the first moment and the second moment. Optionally, the preset duration is one cardiac cycle, or the preset duration is a duration specified by the user. Among them, a cardiac cycle may refer to the time interval between two adjacent diastolic troughs (ED), as shown in FIG. 13. In addition, it is understandable that other methods can also be used to define the cardiac cycle, such as between two adjacent systolic peaks (PS), etc., which is not limited by the present invention.

As an example, in conjunction with FIG. 11, suppose that the first time is t0 and the second time is t1. Then, the ratio of each form within the preset time length from the first time (t0) to the second time (t1) can be determined according to FIG. 11. In Figure 11, the ratio of the area of the laminar flow area represented by the diagonal line (that is, the area between the solid line representing the laminar flow and the horizontal and vertical coordinates) to the total area of the rectangular frame can be determined as the ratio of the laminar flow within the preset time period. Corresponding proportions, where the rectangular frame is the area enclosed by the abscissa t0 to t1 and the ordinate 0-100%. Similarly, the corresponding proportion of the turbulence within the preset duration can be obtained, and the corresponding proportion of the turbulence within the preset duration can be obtained.

Exemplarily, any one of the following methods can be used to display the corresponding proportions of various forms of blood flow in blood vessels in a specific area within a preset period of time: pie chart, bar chart, different colors, and differences in shading. , Data report, etc. As an example, as shown in FIG. 14, a pie chart shows the corresponding proportions of laminar flow, vortex flow and turbulent flow within a preset period of time.

In addition, it can be understood that multiple embodiments for displaying the blood flow pattern in a specific area are described above in conjunction with FIGS. 8 to 14, but these are only schematic, and the shape and the like can also be displayed in other ways. In addition, the blood flow patterns in multiple specific areas can also be displayed at the same time. On the one hand, the blood flow patterns of multiple specific areas can be displayed at the same time, which improves efficiency; on the other hand, the blood flow patterns of multiple specific areas displayed at the same time can be compared and analyzed to more quickly determine whether there is an abnormality.

In addition, it can be understood that ultrasound images can be obtained through ultrasound echo signals, such as ultrasound images of the target area or sub-regions of the target area; then, in S103, the ultrasound image and the blood flow morphology of the specific area can be displayed at the same time.

Now return to the ultrasonic device 10 shown in FIG. 1.

In one implementation, the transmission/reception selection switch 120 may excite the ultrasound probe 110 to transmit an ultrasonic beam to a target area, including blood vessels, via a transmitting circuit, and receive ultrasonic echoes of the ultrasonic beam returned from the target area. The processor 140 may obtain an ultrasonic echo signal based on the ultrasonic echo; determine the vector velocity of the blood flow in the blood vessel according to the ultrasonic echo signal; determine the blood flow shape in the blood vessel according to the vector velocity. The display 150 can display the form of blood flow in the blood vessel.

For example, the transmission/reception selection switch 120 may excite the ultrasonic probe 110 to transmit an ultrasonic beam to a target area including blood vessels in at least two directions via the transmitting circuit, and receive the ultrasonic echo of the ultrasonic beam returned from the target area. . The processor 140 may obtain an ultrasonic echo signal in each of the at least two directions based on the ultrasonic echo; determine the ultrasonic echo signal in each of the at least two directions according to the ultrasonic echo signal in each of the at least two directions. The velocity component of the blood flow along each of the at least two directions; the vector velocity of the blood flow in the blood vessel is determined according to the velocity component of each of the at least two directions; according to the vector velocity, Determine the shape of blood flow in the blood vessel. The display 150 can display the form of blood flow in the blood vessel.

In addition, the embodiment of the present invention also provides a computer storage medium on which a computer program is stored. When the computer program is executed by a computer or a processor, the steps of the method for determining the blood flow pattern shown in any one of FIGS. 3 to 5 or FIG. 7 can be realized. For example, the computer storage medium is a computer-readable storage medium.

In one embodiment, the computer program instructions, when run by the computer or processor, cause the computer or processor to perform the following steps: transmit an ultrasonic beam to a target area, the target area including blood vessels; and receive the ultrasonic wave returned from the target area The ultrasonic echo of the beam to obtain the ultrasonic echo signal; according to the ultrasonic echo signal, determine the vector velocity of the blood flow in the blood vessel; according to the vector velocity, determine the blood flow form in the blood vessel; and display the blood vessel The shape of the blood flow.

In one embodiment, the computer program instructions, when run by the computer or processor, cause the computer or processor to perform the following steps: transmit ultrasound beams to a target area in at least two directions, the target area includes blood vessels, and receive The ultrasonic echo of the ultrasonic beam returned to the target area; the ultrasonic echo signal in each of the at least two directions is obtained based on the ultrasonic echo; the ultrasonic echo in each of the at least two directions is obtained according to the ultrasonic echo in each of the at least two directions Wave signal to determine the velocity component of the blood flow in the blood vessel along each of the at least two directions; determine the velocity component of the blood flow in the blood vessel according to the velocity component in each of the at least two directions Vector speed; according to the vector speed, determine the shape of blood flow in the blood vessel; and display the shape of blood flow in the blood vessel.

The computer storage medium may include, for example, a memory card of a smart phone, a storage component of a tablet computer, a hard disk of a personal computer, a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), a portable compact disk read-only memory ( CD-ROM), USB memory, or any combination of the above storage media. The computer-readable storage medium may be any combination of one or more computer-readable storage media.

In addition, an embodiment of the present invention also provides a computer program product, which contains instructions, when the instructions are executed by a computer, the computer executes any one of the above-mentioned FIGS. 3 to 5 or the determination of the blood flow pattern shown in FIG. 7 Method steps.

Although the exemplary embodiments have been described herein with reference to the accompanying drawings, it should be understood that the above-described exemplary embodiments are merely exemplary, and are not intended to limit the scope of the present invention thereto. Those of ordinary skill in the art can make various changes and modifications therein without departing from the scope and spirit of the present invention. All these changes and modifications are intended to be included within the scope of the present invention as claimed in the appended claims.

A person of ordinary skill in the art may realize that the units and algorithm steps of the examples described in combination with the embodiments disclosed herein can be implemented by electronic hardware or a combination of computer software and electronic hardware. Whether these functions are executed by hardware or software depends on the specific application and design constraint conditions of the technical solution. Professionals and technicians can use different methods for each specific application to implement the described functions, but such implementation should not be considered as going beyond the scope of the present invention.

In the several embodiments provided in this application, it should be understood that the disclosed device and method may be implemented in other ways. For example, the device embodiments described above are only illustrative. For example, the division of the units is only a logical function division, and there may be other divisions in actual implementation, for example, multiple units or components may be combined or It can be integrated into another device, or some features can be ignored or not implemented.

In the instructions provided here, a lot of specific details are explained. However, it can be understood that the embodiments of the present invention can be practiced without these specific details. In some instances, well-known methods, structures, and technologies are not shown in detail, so as not to obscure the understanding of this specification.

Similarly, it should be understood that in order to simplify the present invention and help understand one or more of the various aspects of the invention, in the description of the exemplary embodiments of the present invention, the various features of the present invention are sometimes grouped together into a single embodiment. , Or in its description. However, the method of the present invention should not be interpreted as reflecting the intention that the claimed present invention requires more features than those explicitly stated in each claim. More precisely, as reflected in the corresponding claims, the point of the invention is that the corresponding technical problems can be solved with features that are less than all the features of a single disclosed embodiment. Therefore, the claims following the specific embodiment are thus explicitly incorporated into the specific embodiment, wherein each claim itself serves as a separate embodiment of the present invention.

Those skilled in the art can understand that in addition to mutual exclusion between the features, any combination of all features disclosed in this specification (including the accompanying claims, abstract, and drawings) and any method or device disclosed in this manner can be used. Processes or units are combined. Unless expressly stated otherwise, each feature disclosed in this specification (including the accompanying claims, abstract and drawings) may be replaced by an alternative feature providing the same, equivalent or similar purpose.

In addition, those skilled in the art can understand that although some embodiments described herein include certain features included in other embodiments but not other features, the combination of features of different embodiments means that they are within the scope of the present invention. Within and form different embodiments. For example, in the claims, any one of the claimed embodiments can be used in any combination.

The various component embodiments of the present invention may be implemented by hardware, or by software modules running on one or more processors, or by a combination of them. Those skilled in the art should understand that a microprocessor or a digital signal processor (Digital Signal Processing, DSP) may be used in practice to implement some or all of the functions of some modules in the article analysis device according to the embodiment of the present invention. The present invention can also be implemented as a device program (for example, a computer program and a computer program product) for executing part or all of the methods described herein. Such a program for realizing the present invention may be stored on a computer-readable medium, or may have the form of one or more signals. Such a signal can be downloaded from an Internet website, or provided on a carrier signal, or provided in any other form.

It should be noted that the above-mentioned embodiments illustrate rather than limit the present invention, and those skilled in the art can design alternative embodiments without departing from the scope of the appended claims. In the claims, any reference signs placed between parentheses should not be constructed as a limitation to the claims. The word "comprising" does not exclude the presence of elements or steps not listed in the claims. The word "a" or "an" preceding an element does not exclude the presence of multiple such elements. The invention can be implemented by means of hardware comprising several different elements and by means of a suitably programmed computer. In the unit claims listing several devices, several of these devices may be embodied in the same hardware item. The use of the words first, second, and third, etc. do not indicate any order. These words can be interpreted as names.

The above are only specific implementations or descriptions of specific implementations of the present invention. The protection scope of the present invention is not limited thereto. Anyone familiar with the technical field within the technical scope disclosed by the present invention can easily Any change or replacement should be included in the protection scope of the present invention. The protection scope of the present invention shall be subject to the protection scope of the claims.

Claims

A method for determining blood flow morphology, characterized in that the method includes:

Emitting ultrasonic beams to a target area along at least two directions, the target area including blood vessels;

Receiving the ultrasonic echo of the ultrasonic beam returning from the target area to obtain an ultrasonic echo signal in each of the at least two directions;

Determining the velocity component of the blood flow in the blood vessel along each of the at least two directions according to the ultrasonic echo signals in each of the at least two directions;

Determining the vector velocity of the blood flow in the blood vessel according to the velocity components in each of the at least two directions;

Determine the shape of the blood flow in the blood vessel according to the vector velocity;

The morphology of blood flow in the blood vessel is displayed.
The method according to claim 1, wherein determining the shape of the blood flow in the blood vessel comprises:

The vector velocity is input into a pre-trained classification neural network, so as to obtain the shape of the blood flow in the blood vessel.
The method according to claim 2, wherein the classification neural network is obtained by training in the following manner:

Constructing a training sample set, the training sample set includes a plurality of training samples, each training sample has a blood flow vector velocity and has been marked with a blood flow shape;

Use the training sample set to train the classification neural network until it converges.
The method according to claim 3, characterized in that, in the training process, at least one of the following artificial intelligence algorithms is used: back propagation, stochastic gradient descent, or learning rate attenuation.
The method according to claim 3 or 4, further comprising:

Construct a test sample set, and use the test sample set to test the trained classification neural network.
The method according to any one of claims 1 to 5, wherein determining the shape of the blood flow in the blood vessel according to the vector velocity comprises:

According to the vector velocity combined with patient data as auxiliary information, the shape of the blood flow in the blood vessel is determined.
The method according to claim 6, wherein the patient data as auxiliary information includes at least one of the following: age, medical history, and examination location.
The method according to any one of claims 1 to 7, wherein displaying the form of blood flow in the blood vessel comprises:

The form of blood flow in a specific area in the blood vessel is displayed, where the specific area is the target area or a sub-area of the target area.
The method according to claim 8, wherein displaying the shape of the blood flow in the blood vessel comprises:

The form of the blood flow at each position of the blood flow in the specific area is displayed.
The method according to claim 9, further comprising:

Shows the proportion of different forms of blood flow.
The method according to claim 8, wherein displaying the shape of the blood flow in the blood vessel comprises:

Displays the proportion of different forms of the specific area at multiple moments.
The method according to claim 11, wherein displaying the form of blood flow in the blood vessel comprises:

The change of the proportions of the different forms of the blood flow at each position of the blood flow in the specific area over time is displayed.
The method according to claim 12, wherein the display of the proportion of different forms of blood flow at various positions of the blood flow in the specific region changes over time comprises:

The horizontal axis represents time, and the vertical axis represents ratio, which shows that the proportions of different forms of blood flow at various positions of the blood flow in the specific region change with the cardiac cycle.
The method according to claim 13, further comprising:

Display the heart rate curve in the same coordinate system.
The method according to claim 8, further comprising:

Counting the corresponding proportions of various forms of blood flow in blood vessels in the specific area within a preset time period;

The corresponding proportions of various forms of blood flow in the blood vessel in the specific area within the preset time period are displayed.
The method according to claim 15, wherein the preset duration is one cardiac cycle, or the preset duration is a duration specified by a user.
The method according to claim 10, wherein displaying the proportions of different forms of blood flow comprises:

Use any of the following methods to display the proportions of different forms of blood flow: pie chart, bar chart, different colors, shading differences, data reports.
The method according to any one of claims 1 to 17, wherein the form of the blood flow is any one of the following: laminar flow, turbulent flow, vortex flow, counter flow, and secondary flow.
A method for determining blood flow morphology, characterized in that the method includes:

Acquiring the speed of blood flow in a target area, the target area including blood vessels;

Determining the shape of the blood flow in the target area according to the speed of the blood flow in the target area;

The form of blood flow in the target area is displayed.
The method according to claim 19, wherein the velocity is a vector velocity, and the vector velocity is obtained by any of the following methods: spot tracking method, transverse wave oscillation method, multi-angle deflection transmitting/receiving method ；

The form of the blood flow is any one of the following: laminar flow, turbulent flow, vortex flow, counter flow, secondary flow.
The method according to claim 19, wherein the velocity is a velocity component along the ultrasonic emission direction calculated by an ultrasonic echo signal obtained by transmitting an ultrasonic wave to the target area, and the blood flow has the following shape Any one: messy and orderly.
The method according to any one of claims 19 to 21, wherein displaying the blood flow form of the target area comprises:

The form of blood flow in a specific area is displayed, where the specific area is the target area or a sub-area of the target area.
The method according to claim 22, wherein displaying the form of blood flow in the target area comprises:

The form of the blood flow at each position of the blood flow in the specific area is displayed.
The method according to claim 23, further comprising:

Shows the proportion of different forms of blood flow.
The method according to claim 22, wherein displaying the form of blood flow in the target area comprises:

Displays the proportion of different forms of the specific area at multiple moments.
The method according to claim 25, wherein displaying the blood flow form of the target area comprises:

The proportion of different forms of blood flow at each position of the blood flow in the specific region is displayed over time.
26. The method according to claim 26, wherein said displaying the change of the proportions of different forms of blood flow at various positions of the blood flow in the specific area over time comprises:

The horizontal axis represents time, and the vertical axis represents ratio, which shows that the proportions of different forms of blood flow at various positions of the blood flow in the specific region change with the cardiac cycle.
The method according to claim 27, further comprising:

Display the heart rate curve in the same coordinate system.
The method according to claim 22, further comprising:

Count the corresponding proportions of various forms of blood flow in the specific area within a preset time period;

The corresponding proportions of various forms of blood flow in the specific area within the preset time period are displayed.
The method according to claim 29, wherein the preset duration is one cardiac cycle, or the preset duration is a duration specified by a user.
The method according to claim 24, wherein displaying the proportions of different forms of blood flow comprises:

Use any of the following methods to display the proportions of different forms of blood flow: pie chart, bar chart, different colors, shading differences, data reports.
An ultrasonic device, characterized in that it comprises:

Ultrasound probe

Transmit/receive selection switch, used to excite the ultrasonic probe to transmit an ultrasonic beam to a target area via a transmitting circuit, the target area including blood vessels, and to excite the ultrasonic probe to receive the ultrasonic wave returned from the target area via a receiving circuit Ultrasonic echo of the beam;

A memory for storing programs executed by the processor;

The processor is configured to execute or control the transmission/reception selection switch or the display to execute the method according to any one of claims 1 to 18.
An ultrasonic device, characterized in that it comprises:

Ultrasound probe

Transmit/receive selection switch for stimulating the ultrasonic probe to transmit an ultrasonic beam to a target area via a transmitting circuit, the target area including blood vessels, and stimulating the ultrasonic probe to receive the ultrasonic wave returned from the target area via a receiving circuit Ultrasonic echo of the beam;

A memory for storing programs executed by the processor;

The processor is configured to execute or control the transmit/receive selection switch or the display to execute the method according to any one of claims 19 to 31.
A computer storage medium having a computer program stored thereon, wherein the computer program implements the steps of any one of claims 1 to 31 when the computer program is executed by a computer or a processor.