Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi Medical Corporation

Hitachi Construction Machinery Co., Ltd.

Hitachi Medical Co., Ltd.

Hiroshi Kanda

Isao Ishikawa

Kageyoshi Katakura

Ryuichi Shinomura

Toshio Kondo

Akira Sasaki

Tsuyoshi Mitake

Kazutaka Okada

Yukio Ito

Tatsuya Hayashi

Minoru Yoshida

Shinji Tanaka

Kazuo Sato

Yuichi Miwa

Satoshi Tamano

Kuninori Imai

Mitsuhiro Oshiki

Takeji Shiokawa

Shigeo Kato

Morio Tamura

Hisashi Nishiyama

Shizuo Ishikawa

Hisayoshi Hashimoto

Kazuyoshi Hatano

Harumasa Onozato

Kiyoshi Tanaka

Fujio Sato

Koji Tanabe

Ken Ichiryuu

Takao Kawanuma

Takashi Azuma

Etsuji Yamamoto

Hideki Kohno

Shinichiro Umemura

Kunio Harada

Kazuhiro Sugawara

Shin-ichiro Umemura

Hiroshi Takeuchi

Osamu Arai

Yutaka Sato

Yuzuru Ohji

Masao Kuroda

Hiroshi Masuzawa

Tetsuya Hayashi

Keiko Kushida

Yasuhiro Hashimoto

Koichi Yokosawa

Ken Ishihara

Chitose Nakaya

Katsunori Asafusa

Shinichi Kondo

Shinji Yamamoto

Shinji Kishimoto

Hideyuki Ban

Shuzo Sano

Sumio Yamaguchi

Shin-ichi Kondo

Ryuuichi Shinomura

Takaji Suzuki

Tsuyoshi Otake

Tsuyoshi Kimura

Masa Harashima

Kenji Nosaka

Kozi Tanabe

Satoru Hanasaka

Yuko Ishikawa

Mitsuhiro c/o Hitachi Medical Corporation Oshiki

An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus is disclosed for improving the signal to noise ratio of a receiving system, and allowing demodulation processing of ultrasonic reflection signals at the transducer during the receive process. The ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus includes an ultrasonic probe which transmits and receives ultrasound to and from a subject, a transmitting unit which supplies driving signals to the ultrasonic probe, and a receiving unit which processes signals to be output from the ultrasonic probe and calculates diagnostic information regarding the subject. The ultrasonic probe is equipped with a receiving transducer having sensitivity which changes according to the level of bias voltage to be applied. The receiving unit is equipped with a modulated bias amplification unit which applies signals of bias voltage with modulated amplitude to the receiving transducer.

Ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus

An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus is disclosed for transmitting ultrasonic waves and receiving echo signals. The apparatus includes an ultrasonic probe having transducers whose sensitivity can be controlled in accordance with bias voltage. Echo signals output from the ultrasonic probe are amplified so that an image can be constructed according to the amplified echo signals and displayed. A probe gain control device is used for controlling the bias voltage in accordance with the elapsed time from receiving the echo and matching the intensity of the echo signal output from the ultrasonic probe with the input range of a preamplifier. During a reception period while a strong echo signal is received from a superficial portion of body surface of an examinee, the reception sensitivity of the ultrasonic probe is controlled so that the echo signal level input to the preamplifier will not exceed the input range of the preamplifier.

An ultrasound diagnostic apparatus includes an ultrasound probe, a transmission unit for transmitting an ultrasound signal to an object to be examined via the ultrasound probe, a reception unit for processing a signal received by the ultrasound probe, and an image generating unit for generating an image on the basis of the received signal processed by the reception unit, wherein the transmission unit has a function of transmitting the ultrasound signals with varying frequency plural times in an identical direction at predetermined time intervals. The ultrasound signal transmitted plural times includes a first waveform in which the frequency increases and a second waveform in which the frequency decreases, and the reception unit has a function of phasing and adding received signals respectively corresponding to the first waveform and the second waveform, whereby, in tissue harmonic imaging, the penetration is improved, while the resolution is maintained.

Ultrasonograph

An ultrasound diagnostic apparatus including: a tomogram forming means forming a tomogram of a diagnosis portion of an examinee by transmitting/receiving an ultrasound wave to/from the examinee via an ultrasound probe; color Doppler image forming means forming a color Doppler image based on a Doppler signal obtained from the diagnosis portion; image processing means performing image processing on the tomogram and the color Doppler image; and display means displaying images obtained by the image processing means, the tomogram and the color Doppler image being color displayed on the display means, wherein the image processing means causes the color Doppler image to be displayed transparently.

Ultrasonographic device and ultrasonographic method

An ultrasonic enhanced-contrast imager and method includes an ultrasonic probe for transmitting and receiving an ultrasonic wave to and from an organism, a transmitting section for transmitting an ultrasonic signal to the ultrasonic probe, a receiving section for processing a response signal ultrasonic wave received by the ultrasonic probe, a filter for extracting a specific frequency component from the processed response signal, and a setting control section for setting a pass frequency band of the filter on the basis of a frequency band of the response signal from a contrast medium injected to the organism. A control section controls the operation of the filter in the set pass band, and the setting control section sets the center frequency of the pass band of the filter to be greater than fand less than 2f, where fis the average frequency of the ultrasonic signal transmitted to the ultrasonic probe.

Ultrasonic enhanced-contrast imager and method

An ultrasonic imaging device for transmitting/receiving ultrasonic pulses to/from a living body in which microbubbles for contrast are introduced and forming a contrast image of the inside of the living body by using the microbubble for contrast, wherein transmitting/receiving operations are performed N times (N=an integer of three or greater) by using transmission pulse waves having a common envelope signal while varying carrier waves in phase by 360&#xb0;/N from one wave to another under the same transmission/reception wave focus condition, and by summing N pieces of time-series reception echo signals obtained by the N times of transmitting/receiving operations to obtain a summed signal, thereby forming the contrast image.

Ultrasonic imaging device

An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus includes an ultrasound probe having two-dimensionally arranged transducer elements for transmitting and receiving ultrasonic waves to an object, a transducer element selector for selecting transducer elements used in transmission and reception, a signal processing unit for applying a delay to a signal received by a selected transducer element, an image processing unit for generating an image based on the output signal of the signal processing unit, and an image display unit. The image processing unit stores a first ultrasound image obtained by a scan of a first transducer arrangement selected by the transducer element selector and a second ultrasound image obtained by a scan of a second transducer arrangement selected by the transducer element selector so as to irradiate an ultrasound beam in a different direction than the beam direction of the first transducer arrangement, and combines the first ultrasound image and the second ultrasound image.

An ultrasonographic method includes: a first encoding transmission/reception step for transmitting an ultrasonic beam encoded by an encoding set consisting of a plurality of modulation codes in which at least two are in complementary relationship and demodulating reception signals corresponding to the ultrasonic beam; a step for obtaining a first synthesis signal by synthesizing the demodulation signals demodulated by the first encoding transmission/reception step; a second encoding transmission/reception step for transmitting an ultrasonic beam encoded by a reverse encoding set consisting of a plurality of modulation codes in which the arrangement order of modulation codes of the encoding set is reversed and demodulating the reception signals corresponding to the ultrasonic beam; a step for obtaining a second synthesis signal by synthesizing the demodulated signals demodulated by the second encoding transmission/reception step; a step for obtaining a third synthesis signal by synthesizing the first synthesis signal and the second synthesis signal; and a step for reconstructing the ultrasonograph according to the third synthesis signal.

Ultrasonographic method and ultrasonographic device

An ultrasonic enhanced-contrast imager includes an ultrasonic probe for transmitting an ultrasonic wave to an organism and receiving an ultrasonic wave from the organism, a transmitting section for transmitting an ultrasonic signal to the ultrasonic probe, a receiving section for processing a response signal ultrasonic wave received by the ultrasonic probe, a filter for extracting a specific frequency component from the processed response signal, a setting control section for setting a pass frequency band of the filter on the basis of a frequency band of the response signal from a contrast medium injected to the organism, and a control section for controlling the operation of the filter in the set pass band.

Ultrasonic contrast medium imaging apparatus and method

In an ultrasonic inspection apparatus, a piezoelectric element having a first resonant frequency is stuck to a complex resonance member having a second resonant frequency. The second resonant frequency is determined with a conversion in terms of half wavelength. A resultant ultrasonic probe transmits/receives ultrasonic waves of the first resonant frequency and a plurality of other frequencies. In constructing an ultrasonic tomographic image of the object to be inspected from a received signal obtained by using the ultrasonic probe, the imaging frequency is changed according to the depth in the object to be inspected.

Ultrasonic probe transmitting/receiving an ultrasonic wave of a

A needle-like ultrasonic probe includes an inner needle received in a hollow, tubular outer needle for rotation about an axis thereof. The inner needle has a pointed distal end, and a notch is formed in an outer peripheral surface of that portion of the inner needle which is located adjacent to the distal end thereof. At least one ultrasonic transducer, as well as an acoustic lens for converging an ultrasonic wave, produced by the ultrasonic transducer, onto a point near to the outer peripheral surface of the inner needle, is provided in the notch. A filler, having an outer surface conforming to the outer peripheral surface of the inner needle, is fitted in the notch. With this construction, after the inner needle is smoothly stuck into a living tissue, even if it is rotated and axially moved, the living tissue is less affected or damaged by the inner needle.

Needle-like ultrasonic probe for ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus, method

An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus for displaying a subject moving at high speed, in slow motion. The apparatus has a circuit for picking up an ultrasonic image signal at a frame rate higher than a display frame rate, a circuit for writing the picked-up image signal at a frame rate higher than the display frame rate, a circuit for reading the image signal from the memory at the display frame rate, and a device for displaying the read image signal.

Ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus having frame rate higher than TV frame

An ultrasonic diagnosis system includes a probe and a diagnosis processing apparatus. Ultrasonic transmission signal-transmission power characteristic intrinsic to the probe is previously measured and a transmission power identifying signal indicating the characteristic is imparted to the probe itself. Upon connection of the probe to the diagnosis processing apparatus, the transmission power identifying signal is inputted to a CPU of the diagnosis processing apparatus which includes a memory for storing correcting data corresponding to ranks of the characteristics. The CPU reads out from the memory the correcting data on the basis of the inputted transmission power identifying signal indicating the rank of the probe for thereby correcting the ultrasonic transmission signal. When the characteristic of the probe as connected is such that greater transmission power is outputted for the basic transmission signal when compared with the standardized or design level, amplitude of the ultrasonic transmission signal is corrected to be smaller so that the transmission power assumes the standard or design value. The power sent from the probe thus coincides with the design value regardless of variance in the characteristic of the probe.

Ultrasonic diagnosis system

A memory for temporarily storing a transmitting signal is provided in association with each channel i.e., each transducer of a probe, a transmitting signal for transmitting an ultrasonic wave of a desired waveform is formed through a computer processing, and the thus formed transmitting signal is stored in each memory. Transmitting signals are sent simultaneously to individual channels from individual memories. This ensures that a transmitting signal of a desired waveform can be applied to each channel and the transmission of an ultrasonic wave can be controlled desirably.

A two-dimensional echogram or a tomogram (B-mode image) and a volume of an organ are displayed in real time while radiating an ultrasonic wave to the organ. The volume of the organ is obtained by first designating a plurality of line segments traversing the image of the organ on the two-dimensional echogram, by obtaining a pair of intersections between each line segment and the wall of the organ by using a signal intensity profile (A-mode image) of each line segment, by obtaining a length between the pair of intersections, and by calculating the volume by the Simpson method by using the obtained length. In order to improve the precision of volume calculation, the signal intensity profile is smoothed and the intensity is normalized. The intersections are displayed superposed upon the two-dimensional echogram to allow an operator to visually check easily whether the intersections are correctly aligned with the wall of the organ. If the B-mode image of a heart is displayed in slow motion, the signal intensity is also normalized to display the image brightly during a systole period which image otherwise is likely to become dark during the systole period.

Ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus and ultrasonic diagnosis method

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Tokorozawa, Japan

Hiroshi Kanda