US 5,349,960 AGranted

Ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus

AssigneeOlympus Optical Co., Ltd.

InventorMasahiko Gondo

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Abstract

A plurality of vibrating elements are provided to form an array and successive vibrating elements are selected to emit ultrasonic pulses toward a cavity of a living body. Ultrasonic waves reflected by tissues and blood cells in the blood vessel are received by the vibrating elements and are converted into echo signals. The echo signals are supplied to an orthogonal detector together with a reference signal and are converted into real and imaginary parts of complex signals which are stored in memories as the wave surface data. The wave surface data is read out at suitable timings to obtain an ultrasonic reflection image data such that a focus point is formed in a given space. By processing the reflection image data by a spectrum distribution detector, a spatial frequency is derived. A reflection strength is derived from a DC component of the spatial frequency and a B-mode ultrasonic image is displayed. From an AC component of the spatial frequency a velocity and a direction of a blood stream are derived and are displayed in superimposition with the B-mode ultrasonic image. In this manner, it is possible to detect accurately a blood stream having a very low velocity. Also a blood stream flowing in a direction parallel with a direction in which the vibrating elements are arranged can be measured.

Claims6

Dependent claims

An ultrasonic diagnosing apparatus comprising:

a transmitting circuit for outputting pulses;
a vibrating element array having a number of vibrating elements arranged side by side;
a multiplexer for receiving said pulses from said transmitting circuit and selectively providing said pulses to one of said vibrating elements such that said one of said vibrating elements (i) transmits an ultrasonic pulse in response to said pulses and (ii) receives an ultrasonic wave reflected by an object under inspection and generates an echo signal based on said reflected ultrasonic wave;
a receiving circuit for amplifying said echo signal generated from said one of said vibrating elements to provide an amplified echo signal;
an orthogonal detector for converting said amplified echo signal from the receiving circuit into a complex signal consisting of a real part and an imaginary part;
A/D converting means for converting said complex signal into a digital complex signal;
wave surface data storing means including plural pairs of memories said memory pairs corresponding to respective vibrating elements and storing a said digital complex signal, provided by its respective vibrating element, as wave surface data;
spectrum distribution detecting means for detecting a spatial frequency from the wave surface data stored in said wave surface data storing means;
means for deriving an ultrasonic wave reflection strength from a DC component of the spatial frequency detected by said spectrum distribution detecting means and displaying an ultrasonic image based on said ultrasonic wave reflection strength;
and
means for deriving a velocity of a blood stream from frequency components, of said spatial frequency detected by said spectrum distribution detecting means, other than said DC component.

8 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.