JPH0263441A - Ultrasonic wave feeler and ultrasonic wave diagnosis device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To be able to obtain a three-dimensional information easily and also, to obtain what has a better adherence quality to the surface of an inspected body by forming feeler surface strikingly contacted with the inspected body, with a spherical surface of a predetermined curvature, and arranging two- dimensionally a plurality of vibration elements along this spherical surface. CONSTITUTION:Vibration elements are two-dimensionally arranged, and a radiating surface formed out of a group of vibration elements, is made to be a spherical surface. That is, at a feeler 16, vibration elements 18 which are piezoelectric elements, are cut into hexangles or circles or the like, or struck on, and they are arranged. And, a damper material 20 absorbing an ultrasonic wave is stuck on the back surfaces of these, and a surface coating film 22 which also works as an adjustment layer, is applied on the front surface side. As a result, the quality of adherence between the feeler radiating surface and an inspected body surface is maintained excellently, and also, a convex scanning territory widening at its tip can be obtained by conducting the same scan with the ordinary linear scan, and a wide territory image can be formed out of a small number of vibration elements 18.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Industrial Application Field] The present invention relates to an ultrasonic probe and an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus, particularly an ultrasonic probe with a new configuration regarding a vibrating element array for electronically scanning ultrasonic waves into a subject. This invention relates to a sonic probe and an ultrasonic diagnostic device.

[Prior Art] Ultrasonic diagnostic equipment that emits ultrasonic waves into a subject such as a living body, receives reflected echoes, and displays internal information such as a tomographic image or velocity (Doppler) information as an image is well known. be.

FIG. 6 shows a schematic configuration of a probe 10 in such an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus, in which a damper material 14 for absorbing ultrasonic waves is provided on the back side of a vibrator 12 in which a plurality of vibrating elements are formed. is pasted. The ultrasonic beam is transmitted through the vibrator 12
The damper material 14 is formed by controlling the excitation of each vibrating element therein, and the damper material 14 prevents ultrasonic waves from being emitted to the rear surface.

Although not shown in the figure, an acoustic matching layer is provided on the front surface of the transducer 12, so that the ultrasonic beam formed by the transducer 12 can be efficiently radiated into the subject. ing.

Conventionally, as shown in FIG. 7, such a probe 10 performs sub-scanning in sector scanning or linear scanning. In other words, in the case of sector scanning, the scanning area becomes a sector (fan) shape as shown in FIG. Since the ultrasonic waves are emitted in a predetermined angular direction, the sector scanning can be performed by sequentially changing the delay control.

In addition, in the case of linear scanning, the scanning area is rectangular as shown in FIG. Therefore, the linear scanning becomes possible by sequentially shifting the position of the vibrating element that excites the ultrasonic waves.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] By the way, the probe 10 can only obtain information on a predetermined tomographic plane within the subject that is electronically scanned, and cannot obtain three-dimensional (3D) information such as an affected area.
In order to understand the three-dimensional structure, it is necessary to operate the probe 10 by moving it in each direction. Therefore, operations for obtaining three-dimensional information are complicated.

Additionally, several diagnostic images may be obtained for internal parts of the subject that have a three-dimensional structure, but since each image is taken separately, it is difficult to accurately understand the relationship between each image. There was also the problem that it was inconvenient when performing image diagnosis while making comparisons later.

Therefore, in order to solve the above-mentioned problem of m points, the applicant proposes a probe in which vibrating elements are arranged two-dimensionally. Since the area becomes large, there is a problem that the close contact between the radiation surface of the probe and the subject becomes poor. When emitting ultrasound into the subject, it is necessary to maintain good contact with the subject; if the contact is insufficient, the ultrasound will not be emitted efficiently into the subject, resulting in poor image quality. I will do it.

Purpose of the Invention The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned conventional problems, and its purpose is to provide an ultraviolet ray material that can easily obtain three-dimensional information and has good adhesion to the surface of a subject. Our objective is to provide a sonic probe.

Another object of the present invention is to provide an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus that can easily and quickly obtain three-dimensional information using the above-mentioned ultrasonic probe.

[Means for Solving the Problems] In order to achieve the above object, the ultrasonic probe according to the present invention has a probe surface that comes into contact with a subject formed of a spherical surface with a predetermined curvature. It is characterized by a plurality of vibrating elements arranged two-dimensionally along.

In addition, the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to the present invention has a probe surface that comes into contact with a subject formed of a spherical surface with a predetermined curvature, and a plurality of vibrating elements arranged two-dimensionally along this spherical surface. It has a probe, selects a predetermined number of linearly arranged transducer elements within this ultrasonic probe, and electronically scans a predetermined surface within the subject with this group of transducer elements. It is characterized by moving and scanning in a direction perpendicular to the direction in which the vibrating elements are arranged by sequentially selecting parallel vibrating element groups and electronically scanning them.

According to the configuration of C-L, the radiation surface of the ultrasonic probe is formed into a spherical surface, and the vibrating elements are arranged on this two-dimensional spherical surface. In this case, the shape of the individual vibrating elements on the radiation surface is hexagonal, square, or circular.

Therefore, by arbitrarily selecting a group of vibrating elements in the probe, it is possible to obtain intra-subject information such as a tomographic image of a desired plane.

Further, according to the ultrasound diagnostic apparatus using the ultrasound probe, the vibration elements arranged in a straight line are selected from among the vibration elements arranged on the two-dimensional curved surface, and the vibration elements arranged in a straight line are selected from among the vibration elements arranged on the two-dimensional curved surface. A convex scan (or sector scan) is performed, and for example, one tomographic image is scanned j'4.

Next, another vibrating element group (the number of vibrating elements may be the same or different) is moved in parallel to the vibrating element group.
is selected, Humpex scanning is performed using this group of vibrating elements, and this parallel movement scanning is performed sequentially a designated number of times. Therefore, tomographic images corresponding to the number of days of parallel movement are obtained, which enables three-dimensional diagnosis.

Furthermore, the group of transducer elements for obtaining the tomographic images (or other object information) can be selected by selecting a group of transducer elements determined by a predetermined relationship, such as an orthogonal relationship or a diagonally shifted relationship. , information such as desired tomographic images of multiple sites can be obtained. In this way, since a plurality of pieces of information can be obtained based on predetermined relationships, three-dimensional observation of the affected tissue becomes possible.

[Embodiments] Hereinafter, preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described based on the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows the configuration of a first embodiment of the present invention relating to an ultrasonic probe, and FIG.
Figure (b) shows the vibrating element radiation surface located at the bottom surface.

The characteristic feature of the present invention is that three-dimensional information inside the subject can be easily obtained, and for this purpose, the present invention arranges the transducer elements two-dimensionally and uses a group of transducer elements. The radiation surface formed is a spherical surface.

That is, in the probe 16 of FIG. 1, as shown in FIG. 1(b), the vibrating elements 18, which are piezoelectric elements, are cut or pasted into hexagonal shapes and arranged. Then, the vibrating elements 18 are lined up in a straight line in the diagonal directions (1) and (2) of the lateral force direction 11 in the figure.

Further, the vibrating elements 18 can be arranged in a circle as shown in FIG. It has the advantage of having a high degree of freedom in arrangement.

Furthermore, as shown in FIG. 2(b), the vibration elements 18-C can be cut into squares and arranged in a matrix. -, IV- are arranged in a straight line. In this case, there is an advantage that the vibration element 18-C can be easily formed and manufactured.

Vibration element 1 formed with various shapes such as -L
As shown in FIG. 1, a damper material 20 that absorbs ultrasonic waves is attached to the rear surface of the vibrating element portion constituted by 8, as in the conventional case. Therefore, the ultrasound waves are transmitted to the probe 16
The light will be emitted only to the front surface, and not to the rear surface. In addition, a surface coating film 22 is provided on the front side of the vibrating element 18, which also serves as a matching layer, so that ultrasonic waves can be efficiently radiated into the subject with less reflection from the body surface. At the same time, it becomes possible to maintain good contact with the surface of the subject. Note that this probe 16 is connected to the main body via a cable 24.

In the present invention, as described above, since the radiation surface of the probe 16 is made spherical, there is an advantage that good adhesion between the probe radiation surface and the surface of the object to be examined is maintained. can enter the subject's body without being reflected on the body surface.

According to such a spherical probe 16, for example, as shown in FIG. 3(a), a tomographic plane in a certain direction can be sequentially electronically scanned, and as shown in FIG. 3(b). Then, a desired tomographic plane is selected and electronically scanned, and as shown in FIG. 3(C), the transducers 18 are selected radially from the center of the spherical surface and the tomographic plane is rotated and electronically scanned. be able to.

Since the probe 16 of the present invention has a spherical radiation surface, it is possible to obtain a convex scanning area where the tip is widened by performing the same scanning as a normal linear scanning, and it is possible to obtain a convex scanning area where the tip is expanded, and to use fewer vibration elements 18. It is possible to form images over a wide area.

It is also possible to perform sector scanning, and by selecting one of these scanning methods depending on the diagnostic purpose, it is possible to expand the scope of application of the probe.

In actual image diagnosis, it is necessary to form a plurality of screens in a predetermined relationship in order to easily observe information inside a three-dimensional object. Therefore, in order to enable three-dimensional diagnosis, the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to the present invention is characterized in that it performs electronic scanning in a related manner on a plurality of screens. A second embodiment of the device will be described.

FIG. 4 shows an outline of the system circuit of the second embodiment, in which an excitation signal generation circuit 26, a transmission vibration element selection circuit 27, and a transmission/reception switch 28 are connected to the probe 16. The signal generation circuit 26 and the transmission vibration element selection circuit 27 are controlled by a scanning control circuit 29, and the excitation signal generation circuit 26 outputs an ultrasonic excitation signal of a predetermined frequency at a predetermined period.

The transmission vibration element selection circuit 27 performs control based on the scanning control circuit 29 to select the vibration elements 18 arranged on a two-dimensional spherical surface, which is a feature of the present invention. In the present invention, as shown in FIG. 5(a), the range in which the probe TF 16 can transmit and receive ultrasound is within the conical column
0, for example, 5I, S2. Electronic scanning can be performed along each of the parallel lines indicated by S3 at intervals of several lll11.

For this purpose, within the probe 16, the parallel line St
, S2, S3, a predetermined number of transducer elements 18 arranged in a straight line are selected, and this group of transducer elements is used to move the lines s, , s2, . Electronic scanning will be performed along s3.

Further, in order to form a tomographic image, a receiving circuit 30 is connected to the probe 16, and this receiving circuit 30 receives information about the vibrating element 18 that transmitted the ultrasound from the transmitting vibrating element selection circuit 27. The ultrasonic wave is received by the same vibrating element 18 that transmits the ultrasonic wave. An image storage processing circuit 32 is connected to this receiving circuit 30, and a CRT display 34 is connected to the image storage processing circuit 32, and the received signal obtained by the receiving circuit 30 is subjected to predetermined processing. , will be displayed on the CRT display 34 as a tomographic image or the like.

The second embodiment has the following configuration, and its operation will be explained below.

First, the probe 16 is positioned by coming into contact with, for example, the abdominal surface of the subject. However, in the present invention, since multiple tomographic images are formed in association with each other, once the probe 16 is positioned, it can be positioned many times as in the conventional method. There's no need.

Then, the conditions for obtaining a tomographic image, such as the position of a tomographic plane, the interval between a plurality of tomographic planes, and the number of tomographic planes, are set using an operating section provided on the main body.

As shown in FIG. 5(a), when ultrasonic waves are transmitted and received on a plane cutting the conical columnar region 100 by parallel lines SL and S2°s3, as shown in FIG. 5(b), A tomographic image S1 of a tomographic plane when the diagnostic region is sliced at intervals of several m+n (or several cm). S2. You will get S3.

Furthermore, as shown in FIG. 5(a), the designation of the tomographic plane can be made into two planes cut by the criss-crossing line s1 and line p; in this case, as shown in FIG. 5(C). As shown in s2., the tomographic images s2. p will be obtained.

Since the tomographic images obtained in this way are formed with a predetermined relationship, the size and shape of the affected area can be grasped as shown in the figure, and three-dimensional diagnosis of the diagnosis area becomes possible. In the embodiment, the information regarding the position of the tomographic plane is displayed on the CRT display 34 and recorded in the photographed photograph, so that the positional relationship between the tomographic images can be easily known later.

Furthermore, according to such an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus, by performing predetermined processing on the information obtained by scanning not only the surface in the ultrasonic emission direction but also the entire area of the probe 16, the ultrasonic emission direction and It is also possible to obtain a tomographic image in the vertical direction (at the same depth).

[Effects of the Invention] As explained above, according to the ultrasonic probe of the present invention,
Since the radiation surface of the probe is a two-dimensional spherical surface and the vibrating elements are arranged on this two-dimensional spherical surface, it is possible to easily obtain three-dimensional information of the diagnostic site, and at the same time, the It is possible to maintain the close contact between the probe and the surface of the object and to perform the ultrasonic wave transmission and reception effectively.

Furthermore, according to the ultrasound diagnostic apparatus of the present invention, a plurality of tomographic images (or tomographic planes) are formed based on a predetermined relationship. This has the advantage of making collection easier. Therefore,
The size and shape of the affected area will be diagnosed three-dimensionally,
It becomes possible to provide useful information that can contribute to image diagnosis.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram showing an outline of the first embodiment of the present invention regarding an ultrasound probe, and FIG. 2 is a diagram showing another example regarding the shape and arrangement of the vibrating elements in the ultrasound probe of the first embodiment. FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of a tomographic plane obtained by an ultrasound probe, FIG. 4 is a circuit block diagram showing a second embodiment of the present invention regarding an ultrasound diagnostic device, and FIG. An explanatory diagram showing a tomographic plane and a tomographic image obtained in the second embodiment. Fig. 6 is an explanatory diagram showing the schematic configuration of a conventional probe. Fig. 7 is an explanatory diagram showing electronic scanning by a conventional probe. It is a diagram. 10... Probe 12... Vibrator 14.20... Damper material (Q) (b) 1 μΣ scale figure Figure 1 Surface coating of the probe vibrating element of the present invention Membrane excitation signal generation circuit Transmission vibration element selection circuit Scanning control circuit Receiving circuit Image storage processing circuit.

Claims (2)

[Claims] (1) An ultrasonic probe in which the probe surface that comes into contact with the subject is formed of a spherical surface of a predetermined curvature, and a plurality of vibrating elements are two-dimensionally arranged along this spherical surface. (2) It has an ultrasonic probe in which the probe surface that comes into contact with the object is formed of a spherical surface with a predetermined curvature, and a plurality of vibrating elements are arranged two-dimensionally along this spherical surface. A predetermined number of linearly arranged transducer elements are selected within the sonic probe, and a predetermined tomographic plane within the subject is electronically scanned with this group of transducer elements, and a group of transducer elements that are parallel to the group of transducer elements are sequentially scanned. An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus characterized by selectively performing electronic scanning to move and scan in a direction perpendicular to the direction in which the transducer elements are arranged.