Ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus and ultrasonic measurement method

Abstract

Disclosed are an ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus and an ultrasonic measurement method enabling easy acquisition of elasticity information by means of a shear wave. The ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus is provided with an ultrasonic probe (4) for transmitting / receiving an ultrasonic wave to / from a subject (5), a vibrator (3) for generating a shear wave, a transmitting / receiving unit (2, 6) for transmitting / receiving an ultrasonic wave to / from the ultrasonic probe (4), a shear wave propagation detecting unit (14) for determining the propagation position of the shear wave and the propagation time of the shear wave, a shear wave image constructing unit (16) for constructing a shear wave image showing the relation between the propagation position and propagation time of the shear wave, and an elasticity information computing unit (15); for computing elasticity information on the basis of the boundary of the shear wave image.

Description

technical field [0001] The present invention relates to an ultrasonic diagnostic device and an ultrasonic measurement method for obtaining and displaying elastic information of living tissue and the like by using ultrasonic waves. Background technique [0002] An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus transmits ultrasonic waves to living tissue or the like from an ultrasonic probe, receives reflected echo signals of the ultrasonic waves corresponding to the structure of the living tissue, etc., and generates and displays ultrasonic tomographic images. In addition, by manually or mechanically pressing the living tissue with the ultrasonic probe, etc., the displacement of the living tissue can be obtained based on the frame data of two ultrasonic signals with different measurement times, and the hardness or Elasticity image for elastic information of softness. [0003] Furthermore, as a method of obtaining elasticity information using ultrasonic waves, there is also a method of usin...

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Problems solved by technology

[0008] In Patent Document 1, a dedicated probe for measuring the propagation velocity of shear waves is used, but since the tomographic image of the subject cannot be acquired with this dedicated probe, it is impossible to measure the elastic information that is desired to be obtained while confirming the tomographic image. The velocity of propagation of the shear wave at the position

[0009] In addition, in Patent Documents 1 and 2, although it is described that a dedicated probe for measuring shear wave propagation velocity is installed in the probe for acquiring tomographic images, since two probes are required, and the probe for acquiring tomographic images and the Ultrasonic transceivers of the two systems that measure the shear wave propagation velocity, so their operation and structure are complicated

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