Ultrasound diagnosis apparatus

• US 8,328,723 B2
• Filed: 06/20/2006
• Issued: 12/11/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 09/14/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Hitachi Medical Corporation (Hitachi, Ltd.)
• Inventors: Azuma, Takashi, Umemura, Shinichiro
• Primary Examiner(s): Le, Long V.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Negarestan, Farshad
• Application Number:
  US11/996,511
• Publication Number:
  US 20090270730A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,366 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 600/439
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 18/14 Probes or electrodes therefor
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/0833 involving detecting or locating foreign bodies or organic structures
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/14 Echo-tomography
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/483 involving the acquisition of a 3D volume of data
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/485 involving measuring strain or elastic properties
• CPC Class Codes: A61N 2007/0078 with multiple treatment transducers
• CPC Class Codes: A61N 7/02 Localised ultrasound hyperthermia hyperthermia in general A61F7/00
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 15/899 Combination of imaging systems with ancillary equipment
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/52036 using analysis of echo signal for target characterisation
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/52042 determining elastic properties of the propagation medium or of the reflective target diagnostic techniques involving the measurement of strain A61B8/485

Abstract

An ultrasound diagnosis apparatus includes an ultrasound probe 1, in which a plurality of transducer elements are arrayed and which converges and radiates an ultrasound on a patient and detects a reflection wave thereof, and images a tomogram of the patient, using the reflection wave, wherein an expansion detector 22 operates a difference between a radial component of a therapeutic converging beam of a movement amount of each part, and an integral amount integrated from the radial component, and extracts a tissue expansion generated at a part of the patient from the tomogram, and wherein the movement amount is calculated by performing a pattern matching between tomograms imaged with different frames.

Claims

1. An ultrasound diagnosis apparatus having an ultrasound probe in which a plurality of transducer elements are arrayed, and which converges and radiates an ultrasound on a patient and detects a reflection wave thereof;

and imaging a tomogram of the patient, using the reflection wave, the apparatus comprising;

a cross correlator for performing a pattern matching between the tomogram imaged with one frame and the tomogram imaged with another frame and operating a displacement signal, the pattern matching being performed by taking a cross correlation through application of a first displacement function for expressing a displacement such that a place becomes closer to a body surface at a shallow depth and a displacement such that a place becomes farther from the body surface at a greater depth; and

a tissue expansion detector for performing a second pattern matching between the displacement signal and a second displacement function for expressing a displacement form caused by a partial tissue expansion of the patient,

wherein a tissue expansion generated at a part of the patient is extracted from the second pattern matching.

2. The ultrasound diagnosis apparatus according to claim 1, wherein any of the pattern matching, the second pattern matching, and the both is performed by using the cross correlation.

3. The ultrasound diagnosis apparatus according to claim 1, wherein after a filtering processing of setting and integrating an integral window at a boundary between a variation caused by a tissue motion of the patient and a variation caused by the tissue expansion is performed for the displacement signal, an extraction of the tissue expansion is performed.

4. An ultrasound diagnosis apparatus having an ultrasound probe in which a plurality of transducer elements are arrayed, and which converges and radiates an ultrasound on a patient and detects a reflection wave thereof;

and imaging a tomogram of the patient, using the reflection wave, the apparatus comprising;

a cross correlator for performing a pattern matching between the tomogram imaged with one frame and the tomogram imaged with another frame and operating a displacement signal, the pattern matching being performed by taking a cross correlation through application of a first displacement function for expressing a displacement such that a place becomes closer to a body surface at a shallow depth and a displacement such that a place becomes farther from the body surface at a greater depth;

a Fourier transform for transforming the displacement signal into a frequency domain;

a multiplier for multiplying the displacement signal transformed into the frequency domain by a second displacement function for expressing a displacement form caused by a partial tissue expansion of the patient in the frequency domain; and

an inverse Fourier transform for inverse transforming the signal of the frequency domain multiplied by the multiplier into a time domain,

wherein the tissue expansion is extracted by using the time domain signal inverse transformed.

5. The ultrasound diagnosis apparatus according to claim 4, wherein after a filtering processing of setting and integrating an integral window at a boundary between a variation caused by a tissue motion of the patient and a variation caused by the tissue expansion is performed for the displacement signal, an extraction of the tissue expansion is performed.

6. An ultrasound diagnosis apparatus having an ultrasound probe in which a plurality of transducer elements are arrayed, and which converges and radiates an ultrasound on a patient and detects a reflection wave thereof;

and imaging a tomogram of the patient, using the reflection wave, wherein a tissue expansion is generated by converging and radiating a therapeutic converging beam, which is any one of the ultrasound, a second ultrasound, an electromagnetic wave, and a combination of these, on a part of the patient, the apparatus comprising;

a cross correlator for performing a pattern matching between the tomogram imaged with a frame and the tomogram imaged with another frame and operating a displacement signal by using a cross correlation, the pattern matching being performed by taking the cross correlation through application of a displacement function for expressing a displacement such that a place becomes closer to a body surface at a shallow depth and a displacement such that a place becomes farther from the body surface at a greater depth;

a radial component calculator for calculating a radial component of the therapeutic converging beam;

an integrator for integrating the radial component and calculating an integral amount thereof; and

a subtracter for operating a difference between the radial component and the integral amount,

wherein the tissue expansion is extracted by using the difference.

7. The ultrasound diagnosis apparatus according to claim 6, wherein the pattern matching is performed for a temporal change of a plurality of imaging signals by using the tomograms of not less than three frames, and the temporal change is used.

8. The ultrasound diagnosis apparatus according to claim 6 comprising a controller configured to stop a radiation of the therapeutic converging beam when the tissue expansion is detected by not less than a predetermined amount.

9. The ultrasound diagnosis apparatus according to claim 6, wherein after the therapeutic converging beam is radiated, a pause of the radiation is taken for a period, and the tissue expansion of the pause period is detected.

10. The ultrasound diagnosis apparatus according to claim 6,

wherein the therapeutic converging beam is a therapeutic ultrasound beam of any of the ultrasound, the second ultrasound, and both, and

wherein the therapeutic ultrasound beam is converged and radiated so that a plurality of pressure maximum values is formed in a vertical plane with respect to a radial direction.

11. The ultrasound diagnosis apparatus according to claim 6,

wherein the therapeutic converging beam is a therapeutic ultrasound beam of any of the ultrasound, the second ultrasound, and the both, and

wherein a plurality of transducers configured to converge and radiate therapeutic ultrasound beams on a focus are two-dimensionally divided into a plurality of areas through a line passing through a radiation axis passing the focus, and phases of the therapeutic ultrasound beams converged and radiated from the areas which neighbor are inverted with each other.

12. An ultrasound diagnosis apparatus having an ultrasound probe in which a plurality of transducer elements are arrayed, and which converges and radiates an ultrasound on a patient and detects a reflection wave thereof;

and imaging a tomogram of the patient, using the reflection wave, the apparatus comprising;

a cross correlator for performing a pattern matching between the tomogram imaged with one frame and the tomogram imaged with another frame and operating a displacement signal, the pattern matching being performed by taking a cross correlation through application of a first displacement function for expressing a displacement such that a place becomes closer to a body surface at a shallow depth and a displacement such that a place becomes farther from the body surface at a greater depth; and

a tissue expansion detector for performing a second pattern matching between the displacement signal and a second displacement function for expressing a displacement form caused by a partial tissue expansion of the patient,

wherein the tissue expansion detector detects a volume change generated at a part of the patient for a pause period of a radiation of the ultrasound by the ultrasound probe.