Ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus and image processing method

An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus comprising:

• an ultrasonic probe configured to transmit ultrasonic beams and receives the reflected echo signals from an examination object;
• a signal processing unit configured to perform signal processing on the reflected echo signals and generate echo data;
• a time phase estimation unit configured to estimate time phase information on the periodic movement of the examination object included in the echo data;
• an image processing unit configured to create a 3-dimensional ultrasonic image of the examination object for each time phase using the time phase information estimated by the time phase estimation unit and the echo data;
• and
• a display unit configured to display the 3-dimensional ultrasonic image,
• further comprising a time phase correction unit configured to correct the time phase information estimated by the time phase estimation unit,
• wherein the image processing unit creates the 3-dimensional ultrasonic image using the time phase information corrected by the time phase correction unit.