JPH0574793B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (a) Field of Industrial Application The present invention relates to a tomographic image creation device such as an ECT device (emission computer tomography device).

(b) Prior art Conventional ECT devices simply capture traverse images,
Only a tomographic image, such as a coronal image or a sagittal image, obtained by cutting the entire object at one arbitrary cross section can be obtained. Therefore, when examining an organ that consists of left and right parts, such as a kidney, for example, the left and right parts have different positions and inclinations, making it difficult to compare the images of the left and right parts. be.

(C) Purpose This invention provides a method for treating organs such as kidneys, which have different positions and inclinations on the left and right sides, by
An improved tomographic image creation device that allows you to set tomographic planes separately according to each position and inclination, and allows you to easily compare and examine tomographic images of corresponding parts on the left and right sides. The purpose is to provide

(D) Configuration The tomographic image creation device according to the present invention arbitrarily sets tomographic planes for each part of a symmetrical organ depending on the object to be examined, and generates image data about tomographic images in parallel multilayer planes. By extracting and arranging data located on each of the set tomographic planes from the three-dimensional distribution data constructed by The images are displayed on one screen in accordance with the positional relationship between the images.

(E) Example In FIG. 1, the scintillation camera 2 is designed to rotate around the subject 1, and the scintillation camera 2 comes to rest at every predetermined step of the rotation angle, during which time the scintillation camera 2 rotates around the subject 1. Gamma rays emitted from radioactive isotopes are detected, and the scintillation camera 2 obtains data regarding the position of each incident gamma ray. This data, together with the current angle signal, is sent to the memory 6 via the interface 3 and data bus 4 under the control of the CPU 5 and written therein. In this way, projection data regarding the number of incident gamma rays at each angle is collected in the memory 6 for each of a large number of planes perpendicular to the body axis of the subject 1. These projection data are processed by an image reconstruction device 7 that performs back projection, etc., to reconstruct tomographic images for each of many planes perpendicular to the body axis of the subject 1, which are displayed on a CRT via a display control circuit 8. If it is displayed as is by the device 9,
It will be displayed as a traverse image. Image data regarding these multilayer tomographic images are stored in the storage device 10. Since a large number of two-dimensional image data on a plane perpendicular to the body axis of the subject 1 can be obtained in the body axis direction, this storage device 10 stores data of radioactive isotopes in the subject 1 as shown in FIG. Data representing a three-dimensional distribution will be stored.

Here, for example, a coronal image (a tomographic image of a plane extending in the left-right direction of the subject 1 among planes parallel to the body axis of the subject 1) is displayed on the CRT display device 9. Here, it is assumed that an image of a kidney as shown in FIG. 3 is displayed. The kidney has left and right parts,
Although it is roughly symmetrical, strictly speaking, the size, position,
The slope is not necessarily symmetrical either. Therefore, we determined the long axes a-b and a'-b' for the left and right parts, respectively, and the tomographic plane c perpendicular to these.
1, c2, ..., cn and c'1, c'2, ..., c'n are set. This work is done while looking at the input CRT display device 12 controlled by the display control circuit 11.
This is done by operating the input device 14 connected to the input control circuit 13. The input device 14 may include, for example, a keyboard device, a light pen, a trackball, a joy stick, or the like. When the setting of tomographic planes for each left and right portion is completed in this way, the tomographic image extraction circuit 1
5 works, data for each of these tomographic planes is collected from the three-dimensional data stored in the storage device 10, and a tomographic image is constructed for each of these tomographic planes. This large number of tomographic images are stored in the image memory 16, and displayed on the CRT display device 9 via the display control circuit 8 as shown in FIG. That is, images of corresponding tomographic planes c1 and c'1, c2 and c'2, . . . , cn and c'n are displayed side by side for each combination for easy comparison. Therefore, a large number of substantially symmetrical tomographic images of the left and right parts of the kidney can be compared with each other, thereby facilitating diagnosis.

Note that the tomographic planes can be set not only as many parallel planes as shown in Figure 3, but also as radial planes symmetrically as shown in Figure 5, in order to be more useful in actual diagnosis. It can be set arbitrarily for each part depending on the target organ, etc.

(f) Effects According to the tomographic image creation apparatus of the present invention, depending on the object to be examined, for example, for an object having left and right symmetrical parts such as a kidney, each part can be imaged according to the position and inclination of the left and right parts. It is possible to separately set tomographic planes, obtain tomographic images on those set tomographic planes, and display them symmetrically on one screen in correspondence with the positional relationships in each of the above-mentioned parts. Therefore, it becomes easy to compare and examine tomographic images of corresponding locations on the left and right sides, which is very useful for actual medical diagnosis.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Figure 1 is a block diagram of one embodiment of the present invention, Figure 2 is a diagram showing data regarding the three-dimensional distribution of radioactive isotopes, and Figure 3 is a screen displaying a coronal image to explain the setting of tomographic planes. Figure 4 is a screen displaying tomographic images of each tomographic plane set in Figure 3, and Figure 5 is a screen displaying coronal images to explain other tomographic plane settings. FIG. 1...Subject, 2...Scintillation camera, 3
...Interface, 4...Data bus, 5...
CPU, 6...Memory, 7...Image reconstruction device, 8,
11... Display control circuit, 9, 12... CRT display device,
10... Storage device, 13... Input control circuit, 14... Input device, 15... Tomographic image extraction circuit, 16... Image memory.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. Means for storing three-dimensional distribution data constituted by image data of tomographic images on parallel multilayer planes, and means for arbitrarily setting tomographic planes for each of two or more regions according to the inspection object;
means for configuring tomographic images on the set tomographic planes by extracting and arranging data located on each of the set tomographic planes from the three-dimensional distribution data; 1. A tomographic image creation device comprising means for displaying images on one screen in correspondence with the positional relationship between the images.