Ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus and ultrasonic image processing apparatus

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9855025-B2
Application number	US-201113310976-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 5, 2011
Priority date	Jul 28, 2009
Publication date	Jan 2, 2018
Grant date	Jan 2, 2018

Abstract

According to one embodiment, an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus comprises a receiving unit which provides at least some of echo signals with reception delays that vary with ultrasonic transducers and adds each of the echo signals provided with the reception delays to acquire a reception beam includes a predetermined receiving direction and a reception focus and a control unit, the control unit controlling the transmission unit so that a transmission beam including a transmission direction and a transmission focus that are fixed is transmitted, the control unit also controlling the receiving unit by changing patterns of the reception delays and adding the respective patterns to at least some of the echo signals based on the transmission beam including the transmission direction and the transmission focus that are fixed in order to acquire reception beams different in receiving direction and reception focus.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus comprising:
ultrasonic transducers, each of the ultrasonic transducers generating an ultrasonic wave in response to a supplied drive signal, and generating an echo signal in response to a received ultrasonic wave;
transmission circuitry which supplies the drive signal to at least some of the ultrasonic transducers to transmit a transmission beam associated with a predetermined transmission focal position from the ultrasonic probe;
receiving circuitry which performs a delay addition processing for echo signals generated by at least some of the ultrasonic transducers and acquires reception beams associated with predetermined reception focal positions by the delay addition processing;
input circuitry which receives designations of a beam profiling mode and at least a transmission focal position;
processing circuitry which generates a B mode image by performing a B mode process including logarithmic amplification and envelope detection to reception beams based on transmission beams associated with a plurality of transmission focal positions, and generates a beam profile image by performing the B mode process to reception beams based on transmission beams associated with a fixed transmission focal position, the beam profile image being an image regarding sound field for the transmission beam to represent a rough shape of a transmission sound field;
extracts a region having a luminance equal to or more than a certain value on the beam profile image,
measures a minimum width of the region, the minimum width indicating a length in a direction perpendicular to a transmission direction, and
measures a depth having the minimum width as information on the fixed transmission focal position; and
a display which displays the beam profile image, the measured information on the fixed transmission focal position, the predetermined transmission focal position and the B mode image as a display of the beam profiling mode.

2. The ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the receiving circuitry comprises a recording circuitry to record, before the addition, each of the echo signals for each of the ultrasonic transducers obtained by use of the transmission beam including the transmission direction and the transmission focus that are fixed, and further comprising control circuitry which controls the transmission circuitry so as to transmit the transmission beam associated with the designated transmission focal position after the designations and controls the receiving circuitry by changing the patterns of the reception delays and adding each of the patterns to each of the echo signals for each of the ultrasonic transducers recorded before the addition in order to acquire the reception beams different in the receiving direction and the reception focus.

3. The ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to claim 2 , wherein the control circuitry controls the transmission circuitry and the receiving circuitry to alternately repeat the transmission of the transmission beam including the transmission direction and the transmission focus that are fixed and the acquisition of the reception beam in which the pattern of the reception delay is changed.

4. The ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the processing circuitry generates a superposed image by use of the beam profile image and an ultrasonic image of a subject, and
the display displays the superposed image.

5. The ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the processing circuitry acquires the beam profile image for each sound velocity value, and measures a real focal position corresponding to the each sound velocity value,
the apparatus further comprises an estimation circuitry which estimates a sound velocity value within a subject on the basis of the position of the set transmission focus and the position of a transmission focus estimated by use of the beam profile image,
wherein the display displays the estimated medium sound velocity of the subject.

6. The ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to claim 1 , further comprising a control processor which uses the beam profile image to evaluate an S/N ratio regarding a main signal component in a main lobe direction of the transmission beam,
wherein the display displays results of the evaluation by the control processor.

7. The ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to claim 2 , wherein the control circuitry controls the receiving circuitry by changing the patterns of the reception delays and adding each of the patterns in order to acquire reception beams two-dimensionally different in receiving direction and reception focus.

8. The ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to claim 2 , wherein the control circuitry controls the receiving circuitry by changing the patterns of the reception delays and adding each of the patterns in order to acquire reception beams three-dimensionally different in receiving direction and reception focus.

9. The ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the display displays the beam profile image in parallel with an ultrasonic image.

Assignees

• Kamiyama Naohisa
• Toshiba Medical Sys Corp

Inventors

• Kamiyama Naohisa

Classifications

• A61B8/483

  involving the acquisition of a 3D volume of data · CPC title

• A61B8/13

  Tomography (A61B8/10, A61B8/12 take precedence) · CPC title

• G01S7/5209

  using multibeam transmission · CPC title

• A61B8/488

  involving Doppler signals · CPC title

• A61B8/5207

  involving processing of raw data to produce diagnostic data, e.g. for generating an image · CPC title