Ultrasonic imaging device and information processing device

摘要

Ultrasonic imaging device noninvasively measures cardiac muscle stiffness or intracardiac pressure. The device includes: an ultrasonic probe (2) transmitting and receiving ultrasonic waves to and from the heart; a signal-processing section (15) processing reflected echo signals; a display section (14) displaying results of signal processing as an image; and an input section (10) setting a predetermined point on the image. The signal-processing section (15) includes: a shape-extracting section (152) perceiving information on the shape of the heart from the reflected echo signals; a natural-frequency detecting section (153) detecting natural frequency of the heart from the reflected echo signals; and a calculating section (154) calculating stiffness of the cardiac muscle or the intracardiac pressure, wherein the calculating section (154) accurately calculates the stiffness of the cardiac muscle from the natural frequency of the heart and calculates the intracardiac pressure from the stiffness of the cardiac muscle that has been calculated.

主权项

1. An ultrasonic imaging device that images an object by utilizing ultrasonic waves, comprising:
an ultrasonic probe that transmits or receives ultrasonic waves to or from the heart that is the object; a signal processing unit that processes a reflected echo signal received by the ultrasonic probe; and a display unit that displays results of signal processing performed by the signal processing unit, wherein the signal processing unit includes a shape extraction block that extracts chamber-circumscribing shape information outlining walls of a chamber of the heart from the reflected echo signal; an eigen-vibration detection block that detects an eigen-vibration of the heart from the reflected echo signal; and an arithmetic block that calculates a myocardial stiffness of the heart or an intracardiac pressure thereof from the chamber-circumscribing shape information and eigen-vibration, wherein the eigen-vibration detection block detects one or more predetermined eigen-vibration modes of a heart chamber shape of the heart which is obtained as the chamber-circumscribing shape information by the shape extraction block, and calculates an eigen-vibration frequency that is a frequency in the eigen-vibration mode, and wherein the arithmetic block calculates the myocardial stiffness or intracardiac pressure using a plurality of eigen-vibration modes calculated by the eigen-vibration detection block; wherein the signal processing unit is configured to perform operations to: create a finite element mesh from the chamber-circumscribing shape information, create a scaled shape mesh by applying a scaling factor to the finite element mesh, use the scaled shape mesh to calculate a calculated eigen-vibration frequency, measure an eigen-vibration frequency to determine a measured eigen-vibration frequency, and determine a difference between the calculated eigen-vibration frequency and the measured eigen-vibration frequency; and wherein the signal processing unit is further configured to repeat the operations using a changed scaling factor until the difference between the calculated eigen-vibration frequency and the measured eigen-vibration frequency is within a predetermined threshold difference.