DIAGNOSTIC ULTRASOUND APPARATUS AND ELASTICITY EVALUATION METHOD

摘要

Disclosed is a technique capable of reducing deterioration of measurement accuracy and reproducibility due to a long measurement time and acquiring an ultrasound image with high diagnostic performance in measurement of a shear wave velocity of radiation pressure elastography. In the radiation pressure elastography, information relating to a motion (fluctuation) in a measurement region is extracted while detecting a shear wave from echo signals due to irradiation of tracking pulses, and is provided to a user as reliability information indicating the reliability of a measurement result. Further, a factor of the fluctuation is specified from the extracted information, and is presented to the user. Furthermore, when arithmetically averaging plural times of measurement results, weighting is performed using the reliability information.

主权项

1. A diagnostic ultrasound apparatus comprising:
a shear wave detecting section that detects a shear wave generated at a focusing position of a burst ultrasonic wave by transmitting the focused burst ultrasonic wave to a subject using an echo signal group obtained by repeatedly transmitting a plurality of shear wave detection pulses; a velocity calculating section that calculates a shear wave velocity which is a propagation velocity of the shear wave; a fluctuation evaluating section that evaluates a fluctuation in a measurement region including a propagation region of the shear wave and obtains a evaluation result as reliability information indicating reliability of the shear wave velocity; and a presenting section that presents the reliability information to a user.