JP2674005B2 - Ultrasound diagnostic equipment - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus. (B) Conventional technology and its problems Generally, in an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus, an ultrasonic wave is transmitted to a subject, and an echo of the ultrasonic wave reflected by each part of the subject is received according to the difference in acoustic impedance. Then, a diagnostic image is displayed based on the received echo signal. Therefore,
The intensity value of the echo signal, which appears as the shade of the displayed diagnostic image, reflects the tissue property in the subject. By the way, conventionally, a doctor has made a diagnosis of the property of a tissue using an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus while observing the contrast of a displayed diagnostic image. However, such a judgment requires a high degree of specialized knowledge and experience, and ultimately it is necessary to cut off the tissue by surgery to determine the quality of the tissue property, which not only imposes a burden on the patient. No, it required unnecessary labor. The present invention has been made in view of such circumstances, and makes maximum use of the noninvasive inspection method that is a feature of the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus, without relying on experience for the tissue properties in the subject. Both aim to solve the conventional problems by making it possible to grasp easily and objectively. (C) Means for Solving the Problems In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, the present invention selects two regions corresponding to a diagnosis target region and a normal region from the displayed diagnostic image, Create a histogram based on the echo signal intensity value existing in each selected area, and take the difference between the mode value of one histogram and the mode value of the other histogram for both of these histograms By shifting the whole by this difference value, standardization is performed to match the modal values of both histograms.Furthermore, for both standardized histograms, the difference in the occurrence frequency for each echo signal strength value is taken as the difference. By displaying the difference, the tissue property can be diagnosed. (D) Examples Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail based on the examples shown in the drawings. In this embodiment, as shown in FIG. 1, for example, in the diagnostic image F in the B mode displayed on the screen of the CRT of the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus, for example, the diagnosis target site and the normal site estimated to be cancer , Two areas corresponding to each
Select R1 and R2. At that time, the regions R1 and R2 are appropriately enlarged or reduced according to the respective regions. Then, the echo signal intensity values existing in each of the selected regions R1 and R2 are stored in the CPU for each pixel, and based on the stored echo signal intensity values, the horizontal axis represents the echo signal intensity as shown in FIG. A histogram H having values and a frequency on the vertical axis is created. In this case, the intensity value of the echo signal appearing as the shade of the displayed diagnostic image F corresponds to the characteristic of the acoustic impedance of the tissue in the subject. Therefore, the obtained histogram has a distribution shape due to its tissue property. That is, for example, when the region R1 selected as the diagnosis target site is cancer, the histogram H1 has a distribution shape as shown in FIG. 3 (a),
In addition, the histogram H2 of the normal region of the other region R2, the third
Both histograms have the distribution shape shown in Figure (b).
The shapes of H1 and H2 are different. When the histogram is obtained in this way, both the histograms H1 and H2 are standardized under a fixed standard. For example,
In this embodiment, the most frequent numbers of echo signal intensities of both histograms H1 and H2 are standardized to match. That is, for both histograms H1 and H2, the difference between the mode of one of the histograms H1, for example, and the mode of the other histogram H2 is taken, and the entire histogram of one histogram H1 is shifted by this difference. Standardize to match the mode values of H1 and H2. Then, for both standardized histograms, the difference in the occurrence frequency for each echo signal strength value is taken as the difference,
Display this difference. The difference data thus obtained has a distribution shape as shown in FIG. 3 (c), for example. In other words, the distribution shape indicated by this difference becomes unique when the tissue property is abnormal, with its emphasis. Therefore, by observing the distribution shape of the displayed differences, the tissue property can be determined. Note that the standardization method is not limited to this embodiment, and for example, standardization may be performed so that all the pixel numbers match, and various types of processing can be adopted. (E) Effect As described above, according to the present invention, no specialized knowledge or experience is required, and even if the tissue of the subject is not cut off by surgery, the tissue property can be easily determined by the noninvasive examination. Moreover, it becomes possible to objectively grasp, and the excellent effect of reducing the burden on the patient is exhibited.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS The drawings show one embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 1 is an explanatory view showing a display example of a diagnostic image of an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus, and FIG. 2 is an echo signal intensity of the diagnostic image. Diagram showing a histogram of values,
FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing a method of obtaining a difference from the obtained histogram. F ... Diagnostic image, R1, R2 ... Region, H1, H2 ... Histogram.

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] From the displayed diagnostic image, two regions corresponding to the diagnosis target region and the normal region are selected, and a histogram is created based on the echo signal intensity value existing in each selected region. , By taking the difference between the mode value of one histogram and the mode value of the other histogram, and shifting the entire one histogram by the value of this difference, standardization is performed to match the mode values of both histograms. Further, an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus capable of diagnosing a tissue property by taking a difference in occurrence frequency for each echo signal intensity value for both standardized histograms and displaying the difference.