Hitachi Medical Corporation

Hitachi, Ltd.

Satoshi Tamano

Ryuichi Shinomura

Takeshi Matsumura

Yukio Ito

Yutaka Sato

Yuichi Miwa

Tsuyoshi Mitake

Shinji Kishimoto

Mitsuhiro Oshiki

Tsuyoshi Shiina

Takashi Osaka

Tetsuya Hayashi

Naoyuki Murayama

Koji Tanabe

Okinori Yuasa

Kageyoshi Katakura

Shinichiro Umemura

Hiroshi Kanda

Hiroshi Masuzawa

Hirotaka Baba

Shizuo Ishikawa

Hisashi Nishiyama

Tsuyoshi Siina

Takashi Kobayashi

Toshio Ogawa

Takashi Sugiyama

Kunio Hashiba

Jun Kubota

Shuzo Sano

Hideki Okazaki

Takaya Osawa

Sachie Yoshida

Hideki Nagata

Akibiko Hanaoka

An inventive ultrasound diagnostic device is provided, which can display information on the temperature rise in a biological object under ultrasound radiation for measurement of a shear elasticity of a biological tissue of interest, thereby drawing attention of an examiner of the device and enabling him to retain the temperature rise within a predetermined safe range while performing the shear elasticity measurement. The device is adapted to measure the shear elasticity of a tissue by ultrasonic waves emitted from a probe. The device has a calculation unit configured to calculate a rise in temperature of the biological tissue irradiated with a focused ultrasonic (US) beam, and a display unit configured to display the temperature information obtained.

Ultrasound diagnostic apparatus and shear-elasticity measurement method therefor

Ultrasound imaging apparatus including a two-dimensional array of plural transducer elements distributed two-dimensionally and transmits and receives ultrasonic waves while scanning an area to be imaged to create an ultrasound three-dimensional image. Transducer elements are divided into plural element blocks including a first element block of which a size in a second direction of an arrangement surface of the two-dimensional array is larger than a size in a first direction of the surface, and a second element block of which a size in the first direction is larger than a size in the second direction. Each of the element blocks is divided into a predetermined number of groups to form a transmit beam and plural receive beams in the area to be imaged. Further included is a selecting means for making transmit/receive channels of the transducer elements grouped to be one channel in each of the groups.

Ultrasound imaging apparatus

An ultrasound elasticity imaging apparatus includes an elastic data processing section which processes a received signal detected by an ultrasound probe and generates elastic frame data, a display evaluation section which evaluates a display value of the elastic frame data based on various data in the generation of the elastic frame data, a display processing section which performs image processing of the elastic frame data according to the evaluation result by the display evaluation section, and a display section which displays an elastic image based on the elastic frame data processed by the image processing section.

Ultrasound probe and ultrasound elasticity imaging apparatus

An ultrasonographic device includes an ultrasonic wave transmitter/receiver section which transmits and receives ultrasonic waves to and from a test subject through a probe, a phasing addition circuit which controls the phase of the received ultrasonic wave and generates RF signal frame data, an RF signal frame data selection section which makes variable the frame interval of the RF signal frame data to be outputted, and an elastic image generating section which sets the optimum imaging range for each elastic frame data generated based on the RF signal frame data and generates elastic image.

Ultrasonographic elasticity imaging device

An ultrasound diagnostic apparatus includes an ultrasound probe which transmits/receives an ultrasound wave with respect to a subject to be diagnosed, an ultrasound wave transmit section which transmits an ultrasound wave for driving the ultrasound probe, a pressing section which applies an external pressure to the subject, a displacement measuring section which obtains two tomographic image data different in time series from a reflected echo signal received from the ultrasound probe and measures a displacement of each part in the subject based on the two tomographic image data, an image generating section which generates an elastic image from elasticity information based on the displacement of each part measured by the displacement measuring section, and a display section which displays the generated elastic image. Further, a pressing decision section decides whether or not the pressing operation by the pressing section is proper.

An ultrasound probe includes an ultrasound wave transmit/receive surface coming into contact with a contact surface of a subject, an ultrasound wave transmit/receive section which transmits an ultrasound wave to the subject via the ultrasound wave transmit/receive surface and the contact surface and receives an ultrasound wave reflected in the subject, and a pressing mechanism for performing a pressing operation for applying a pressure to the contact surface perpendicularly to the ultrasound wave transmit/receive surface via the ultrasound wave transmit/receive surface.

Ultrasonic probe and ultrasonic elasticity imaging device

In an ultrasonic probe including an insert section which is to be inserted into a body cavity organ of a subject and a handle section which is coupled with the insert section, a plurality of vibrator elements () are disposed at a tip end of the insert section over the entire 360 degree circumference thereof and in the handle section, a connection change over switch () is disposed which successively changes over the electrical connection of a predetermined number of the vibrator elements among the plurality of the vibrator elements to be connected with a predetermined number of ultrasonic wave transmission and reception channels () in an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus main body for transmitting and receiving ultrasonic wave signals. Accordingly, an ultrasonic probe which permits to collect ultrasonic wave images including tomograms and blood flow images of high quality without positional irregularity over the entire circumference of the insert section of the ultrasonic probe and to display the same, and an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus using the same are obtained.

Ultrasonic probe and ultrasonic diagnostic device

Ultrasonographic device

An ultrasonographic apparatus includes: an ultrasonic probefor transmitting/receiving an ultrasonic wave to/from a patient, meansfor generating an ultrasonic transmission signal and transmitting it to the ultrasonic probe, meansfor receiving a reflection echo signal received by the ultrasonic probe; meansfor re-constructing a form image according to the reception signal processed by the reception processing means; meansfor re-constructing an elasticity image according to the reception signal processed by the reception processing means; meansfor displaying the form image and the elasticity image; meansfor switching between the form image mode and elasticity image mode; and meansfor performing control so as to selectively acquire the form image and the elasticity image in the measurement period of the elasticity image mode switched by the mode switching means. Thus, it is possible to perform measurement associated with acquisition of both the form image and the elasticity image of the biological tissue and improve the image quality of the form image such as a B mode image and the image quality of the elasticity image such as elasticity ratio and elasticity distortion.

Biological tissue elasticity measurement method and ultrasonographic 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.

Ultrasonograph

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 diagnostic apparatus in which the distortion of the received wave signal due to the ununiformity of the interior of an human body can be reduced accurately with a small circuit scale and an ultrasonic image of high resolution can be produced. The apparatus comprises a probe including an arrangement of elements for transmitting and receiving ultrasonic pulses to and from the interior of a subject, delay means for delaying the wave signal received from each element of the probe, and a plurality of adder means connected in series to the output of the delay means for adding the output signal of the preceding stages thereby to form an ultrasonic beam. The apparatus further comprises correlation means for calculating the correlation of two or more output signals of any of the adder means, and delay correcting means for estimating as many delay correction amounts as the input signals to the delay means from the time difference between adjacent signals generated from the correlation means thereby to correct the delay time of the received wave signal.

Ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus

Ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus including a phase difference computing

Disclosed herein is an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus employing two or more ultrasonic probes each comprising a plurality of ultrasonic transducers each for transmitting and receiving an ultrasonic wave, the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus further comprising: a first storage means for storing only standard focus data, that is, focus data for forming received ultrasonic beams employed in a predetermined one of the ultrasonic probes; a second storage means for storing a ratio of a center frequency of the predetermined one of the ultrasonic probes to a center frequency of another one of the ultrasonic probes; and a calculation means for calculating focus data for forming received ultrasonic beams employed in the other ultrasonic probe from the standard focus data stored in the first storage means and the ratio stored in the second storage means to form an ultrasonic image from the ultrasonic waves received by the ultrasonic transducers employed in the other ultrasonic probe, wherein focus data for forming received ultrasonic beams employed in any of the ultrasonic probes is used for focusing the ultrasonic waves received by the ultrasonic transducers employed in the ultrasonic probe into pieces of digital received signal data and for delaying the pieces of digital received signal data by a predetermined delay time, and delayed pieces of digital received signal data are finally added up to form an ultrasonic image.

Ultrasonic imaging system adapted for use with ultrasonic probes having

Growing community of inventors

Kashiwa, Japan

Satoshi Tamano