Hitachi Medical Corporation

Hitachi, Ltd.

Other

Ryuichi Shinomura

Yuichi Miwa

Satoshi Tamano

Shinichiro Umemura

Hiroshi Kanda

Mitsuhiro Oshiki

Hirotaka Baba

Kageyoshi Katakura

Yutaka Sato

Jun Kubota

Hiroshi Masuzawa

Shizuo Ishikawa

Hiroshi Takeuchi

Wasao Takasugi

Koichi Yokosawa

Shuzo Sano

Hiroyuki Suzuki

Yukio Ito

Akihiko Kandori

Kenichi Kawabata

Takeshi Matsumura

Takashi Azuma

Koichi Sano

Katsuhiro Kuroda

Keiji Tsukada

Shin-ichiro Umemura

Masakatsu Fujie

Tsuyoshi Mitake

Toshio Kondo

Kazutoshi Kan

Norio Yokozawa

Hitoshi Sasabuchi

Katsunori Asafusa

Takeaki Okabe

Shinji Kishimoto

Hisashi Nishiyama

Kazunari Ishida

Kazuaki Sasaki

Shoji Kondo

Yasuaki Komiyama

Kenji Teshigawara

Koji Tanabe

Shin-ichi Kondo

Naoto Fujita

Takaya Osawa

Mitsuhiro c/o Hitachi Medical Corporation Oshiki

Yuichi c/o Hitachi Ltd Intellectual Property Group Miwa

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

For realization of an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus capable of satisfactorily narrowing a beam width while suppressing an increase in the number of focus data, an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus is designed to include an ultrasonic probethat transmits or receives ultrasonic waves to or from a subject, a transmission unitthat supplies a driving signal to the ultrasonic probe, a reception unitthat handles a received signal sent from the ultrasonic probe, a unitthat reconstructs an ultrasonic image on the basis of a signal sent from the reception unit, and a unitthat displays the ultrasonic image. The ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus further includes an element selection unitthat selects a plurality of driving oscillatory elements, which constitutes an aperture through which ultrasonic waves are transmitted or received, from among a plurality of oscillatory elements that constitutes the ultrasonic probeand transforms ultrasonic waves into electric signals or vice versa. The element selection unitgroups the plurality of driving oscillatory elements into a plurality of sets, each of which includes one driving oscillatory element or a plurality of adjoining driving oscillatory elements, according to the depth of a focal point.

This is an image diagnosing support method comprising: an acquisition step of acquiring a plurality of images obtained by imaging the same region of the same object with one or more medical imaging apparatuses and having positional information at the time each of the images was picked up; a selecting step of selecting a first image and a second image out of the plurality of images; a displaying step of displaying the first image and the second image; a step of designating one or more of first reference points on the first image; a step of figuring out second reference points, on the second image, each matching one or another of the first reference points; a first step of extracting for each of the first reference points a first region containing that point within it; and a second step of extracting for each of the second reference points a second region containing that point within it, characterized in that either one of the first step and the second step is performed earlier or both are at the same time.

Image diagnosing support method and image diagnosing support 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 ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus for recognition helpful to diagnosis by giving and displaying a score serving as an index of diagnosis. An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus comprises a displacement measuring section () for measuring the displacement of an organism tissue of a subject () according to a reflection echo signal received correspondingly when an ultrasonic wave is transmitted from a probe () to the subject (), an elastic image creating section for creating an elastic image after determining the distortion amount or the elastic modulus from the displacement, and an image display () for displaying the elastic image. The ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus further comprises scoring means for specifying the distorted state or elastic state according to the information on the elastic image outputted from the elastic image creating section.

A medical imaging diagnosis apparatus for measuring the composite thickness of the tunica intima and the tunica media of a blood vessel of a subject by acquiring image data on the blood vessel. In order to improve the accuracy of the IMT measurement of the composite thickness, the medical imaging diagnosis apparatus has extracting means for extracting the tunica intima and the tunica externa of the blood vessel on the basis of the brightness information of the image data to measure the composite thickness of the tunica intima and the tunica externa of the vessel in reference to the two extracted regions.

Medical imaging diagnosis apparatus and medical imaging diagnosis method

An ultrasonographic apparatus in which the S/N ratio of a compound image is improved operates by combining a plurality of reception beam signals from probes arranged at different positions relative to a sample, converting the combined ultrasonic beam into a luminance signal, and displaying the luminance signal.

Ultrasonographic apparatus, ultrasonographic data processing method, and ultrasonographic data processing program

Encoded transmission and reception which reduces time side lobe are realized while suppressing increase of circuit scale. Transmission signals corresponding to a composite modulation code sequence composed from two or more modulation code sequences are outputted as transmission signals. A reception means demodulates reception signals stepwise by two or more demodulators. The demodulator can be thereby divided into two or more stages, and therefore with a circuit scale corresponding to the sum of the operation circuit numbers of two or more demodulators, time side lobe reduction effect can be obtained at a level equivalent to that obtainable with a circuit scale corresponding to the product of the operation circuit numbers of two or more demodulators.

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.

Ultrasonograph

An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus transmits an ultrasonic beam into an object to be examined using a multi-ring arrangement formed with transducer elements arrayed two-dimensionally in concentric rings and receives an echo so as to create a tomogram or a three-dimensional image of the object. To correct for focusing error due to the difference in length of ultrasound propagating paths, the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus groups the transducer elements so as to form a multi-ring arrangement, transmits/receives ultrasonic beams with a delay to each ring of the multi-ring arrangement and scans the ultrasonic beam so as to create an ultrasonic image, measures delay error due to presence of a sound speed non-uniformity portion of the object and changes either the coupling of the multi-ring or the delay time based on the measurement error.

Ultrasonic diagnosing apparatus

An ultrasonic imaging arrangement performs tentative scanning of ultrasound to the inside of a living body with delay time corresponding to average sonic velocity, calculates delay time error in a delay time error detecting circuit by using received signals from each channel to which delay control has been performed in a digital delay circuit, compares in a delay time comparing unit the calculated data with a plurality of delay time error data corresponding to various sonic velocities using sound velocity as the parameter stored before hand in a sound velocity-derived delay time error storing unit, selects among those sonic velocities the one matching the delay time error data with a sonic velocity selecting unit, and calculates the sonic velocity within the living body. The calculated sonic velocity is fed back to CPU, and the delay data on the delay applied in the ultrasonic scanning is provided to a delay circuit.

Ultrasonic imaging device

An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus acquires images different in a frequency. The invention is composed of a transducer including plural elements for sending an ultrasonic wave and receiving the reflected ultrasonic wave, analog to digital converters that digitize plural received signals, first mixers that respectively multiply a signal from the converter and a first digital reference signal, first filters that respectively extract a signal having a predetermined center frequency from a signal from each first mixer, digital delay units that respectively delay a signal from each first filter, an adder that adds plural signals from the digital delay units, and a second mixer that multiplies a signal from the adder and a second digital reference signal. An envelope detector detects a signal from the second mixer, and a scan converter converts a signal from the detector to a picture signal for display, so the pass band of the filter is not required to be changed.

Ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus and method for processing ultrasonic signal

An ultrasonic probe in which two-dimensional array transducer elements are arrayed convexly both in one direction of the two-dimensional array and in the direction perpendicular to the former direction relative to the direction where an ultrasonic wave is transmitted. By switching a transducer element selecting switch circuit provided near the transducer elements, the shape of the diameter of the probe for transmitting and receiving of ultrasound and the position of the diameter are arbitrarily determined. An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus in which a fresnel ring is formed as an diameter by a control signal to a transducer element selecting switch circuit, the number of cables for connection between the probe and the main body is decreased by bundling the transducer elements in one ring and effecting the connection, the fresnel ring is moved every ultrasonic transmission/reception cycle by the control signal to the transducer element selection switching circuit, and an object is three-dimensionally scanned with an ultrasonic beam.

Ultrasonic probe and ultrasonic diagnostic device comprising the same

An ultrasonic imaging apparatus having a depth range setter for setting a threshold value of detection level for a Doppler signal in an ultrasonic circuit unit , a unit for extracting a time at which the Doppler signal exceeds the set detection level and a signal level in excess of the set detection level, and a ROI depth data generator for determining, for an adaptive phase controller , a ROI depth range for correction necessary to make echo signals of neighboring channels be in phase by using the extracted time and signal level, whereby the focal point can follow the ROI region in an object to be inspected by correcting echo signals from the region where the intensity of the Doppler signal reaches the detection level or its neighboring region so as to make them be in phase between adjacent transducers.

Ultrasonic video apparatus

This invention provides a technology that freely changes the frequency of a reference signal in a digital ultrasonic diagnosis device and makes it possible to conduct various high-quality or high-speed imaging. Reception signals obtained by an ultrasonic element group disposed in an array are digitized in a sampling cycle higher than a Nyquist frequency of the reception signals, and are mixed with reference signal. The mixed signals are then accumulated in a sampling direction, a number of the mixed signals accumulated being equal to a number of a plurality of samples, and are delayed and added by wave reception focusing means. The reference signal serially read out and used from memory means in such a manner as to correspond to the sampling number of the reception signals. A reference signal train acquired from signals, the frequency of which decreases gradually with a lapse of time, from wave transmission, or a reference signal train obtained alternately from two signals having different frequencies, may be stored in advance in memory means.

Ultrasonic diagnosis device

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Higashimatsuyama, Japan

Ryuichi Shinomura