Aloka Co., Ltd.

Hitachi Aloka Medical, Ltd.

Other

The University of Tokyo

Akimitsu Harada

Ryoichi Sakai

Kozo Nakamura

Kouroku Namekawa

Isao Ohnishi

Takashi Okada

Toshiro Uehara

Jyuntaro Matsuyama

A flexure display is a display graph in which positions of a plurality of surface points and amounts of displacement are correlated. A slider provides a user interface for setting time. A time which is set through the slider is reflected on the flexure display or the like. The flexure display provides a graph showing an amount of displacement of each surface point at the time which is set through the slider. A load display shows a temporal change of an amount of load applied to the bone. A strain display shows a temporal change of an amount of strain of the bone. Time markers showing a predetermined time are displayed on the load display and strain display. The time markers are displayed according to the time which is set through the slider.

Ultrasound diagnosis apparatus

An angle calculating unit calculates a bending angle of a bone based on a plurality of surface points. A characteristic data calculating unit determines an indication value which reflects a load applied on the bone, a bone length of the bone, and a position of a fractured part. The characteristic data calculating unit calculates, as characteristic data reflecting a mechanical characteristic of the bone, a proportionality constant indicating a ratio between the indication value and the bending angle of the bone.

An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to the present invention comprises a plurality of transducer units which are two-dimensionally arranged to transmit/receive an ultrasonic wave to/from hard tissue; a transceiver unit which receives an echo signal for each transducer unit from the plurality of transducer units; a surface point specifying unit which specifies a surface point corresponding to a surface of the hard tissue for each echo signal; and a form data generator unit which generates form data of hard tissue surface on the basis of a plurality of surface points obtained two-dimensionally from the echo signals of the plurality of transducer units.

Ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus

An echo tracking processor unit detects a bone surface section based on an echo signal and tracks a position of the bone surface section. An interpolation line generator unit generates an interpolation line connecting tracking points which represent the tracked bone surface section. A translational displacement corrector unit removes a translational displacement component between an interpolation line corresponding to a time phase of a no-load state stored in a memory and an interpolation line corresponding to a time phase in a loaded state output from the interpolation line generator unit. A strain calculator unit calculates an amount of strain of bone for each time phase and outputs to a characteristic curve generator unit. The characteristic curve generator unit generates a characteristic curve related to the strain of bone based on a load value output from a load measurement device and the amount of strain of bone output from the strain calculator unit.

To accurately measure wave intensity as an evaluation value using an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus, a measurement line is set in a tomogram and anterior and posterior walls of a blood vessel are tracked on the measurement line, so that a change waveform concerning a blood vessel diameter is prepared. A tracking gate S is set on the measurement line, so that a blood velocity change waveform is prepared based on echo data concerning a part within the tracking gate S, the change waveform indicating averaged blood velocity. Wave intensity is calculated based on the blood vessel diameter change waveform and the blood velocity change waveform. Prior to the calculation of wave intensity, the blood vessel diameter change waveform is calibrated based on the maximum and minimum blood pressure values into a blood pressure waveform. A beam for Doppler measurement may be set intersecting with the displacement measurement beam.

An ultrasonic diagnostic device for measuring the velocity of blood flow within a living body comprises a receiver for amplifying a received wave in accordance with a logarithmic amplification characteristic and at least one inverse logarithmic converter which produces an output having an inverse logarithmic characteristic with respect to the input thereto. As a result, the device can carry out high-precision measurement of blood flow even when the component of the received wave corresponding to the blood flow is much smaller than a component of the received wave corresponding to the wall of the blood vessel or heart through which the blood is flowing.

Ultrasonic Doppler diagnostic device

An ultrasonic diagnostic device for measuring the velocity of blood flow within a living body comprises a transmitter for transmitting an ultrasonic wave into the body, a receiver for amplifying the part of the ultrasonic wave reflected from the body, converting it into an electric signal and amplifying the signal in accordance with a logarithmic amplification characteristic, a converter circuit which receives the amplified signal from the receiver and a reference signal from the transmitter and outputs a signal corresponding to the ratio of the component of the reflected ultrasonic wave attributable to the blood flow and the component thereof attributable to the wall of the blood vessel through which the blood flows, an extraction circuit which receives the amplified signal from the receiver and outputs a signal corresponding to the component attributable to the wall of the blood vessel, and an arithmetic circuit which multiplies the signals output by the converter circuit and the extraction circuit, whereby there is obtained a signal corresponding to the velocity of the blood flow.

Growing community of inventors

Mitaka, Japan

Akimitsu Harada