JPH0428378B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Industrial Application Field] The present invention relates to an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus, and more particularly to a puncture needle type ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus that performs image display diagnosis of directly adjacent tissue within a test tissue of a subject.

[Prior Art] Conventionally, ultrasonic diagnostic devices emit an ultrasonic beam from the body surface of the subject into the subject's body, and receive reflected waves reflected within the body to obtain information within the subject's body. Common. In addition, in order to perform ultrasound diagnosis from a position closer to the tissue to be examined, a probe equipped with an ultrasound transducer is inserted into the body cavity to transmit and receive ultrasound beams from inside the body to perform ultrasound diagnosis. Internally inserted ultrasound diagnostic devices are also known.

This type of ultrasound diagnostic device that can be inserted into a body cavity is
For example, an ultrasound probe is inserted into the rectum to diagnose the prostate gland. An ultrasonic beam of 3 to 10 MHz is used from the probe of such a diagnostic device so that the ultrasonic pulse reaches a desired depth.

On the other hand, conventional ultrasound technology for puncturing a puncture needle for deep treatment and diagnosis of a subject is aimed at accurately inserting the puncture needle toward the target tissue.For example, it is used on the body surface. A device is known that performs safe and reliable puncture using a probe having a puncture hole through which a puncture needle passes through as a monitor, using a probe having a puncture hole through which a puncture needle is passed through as a monitor.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] According to the probe inserted into the body cavity, ultrasonic diagnosis can be performed from inside the subject. However, since ultrasonic diagnosis is not performed by directly puncturing the tissue to be examined, it is necessary to transmit an ultrasonic beam at a frequency that reaches a predetermined depth. In other words, it is necessary to set the frequency of the ultrasound beam so that the ultrasound beam can reach the tissue suspected of having a lesion from the probe inserted into the body cavity. is used. When using an ultrasonic beam with such a relatively low frequency, it is possible to ensure a penetration depth of the ultrasonic beam of about 15 cm to 3 cm, but there is a problem in that high resolution cannot be obtained.

In other words, in order to obtain high resolution, for example, in order to be able to diagnose the level of red blood cells, a resolution that can discriminate down to about 10μ is required, and the frequency is
It needs to be around 400-500MHz. However, when such a high frequency ultrasound beam is used, the penetration depth is approximately 0.2 to 0.5 mm, making it impossible to diagnose tissues far from the body cavity into which the probe is inserted. Therefore, in the case of a probe inserted into a body cavity,
In order to ensure a certain level of penetration depth, an ultrasonic beam with a relatively low frequency is used, and it is not possible to perform detailed image diagnosis of tissues with a high resolution at the microscopic level.

In addition, with conventional puncture needles, ultrasound image diagnosis is not performed by emitting an ultrasound beam directly from the puncture needle punctured into the tissue to be examined, but by using an ultrasound probe for puncturing the patient from the body surface. The puncture operation is performed by diagnosing the inside and visually confirming the location to be punctured with the puncture needle. Therefore, similar to an ultrasound diagnostic apparatus using a probe inserted into a body cavity, there is a problem that the frequency of the ultrasound beam cannot be increased in order to improve the resolution to the microscopic level.

Purpose of the Invention The present invention was made to solve the above-mentioned problems, and its purpose is to directly insert an ultrasonic oscillator into the tissue to be examined and perform ultrasonic diagnosis of the tissue to be examined at a microscopic level. An object of the present invention is to provide a puncture needle type ultrasonic diagnostic device that can perform diagnosis with high resolution.

[Means for Solving the Problems] In order to achieve the above object, the present invention includes a hollow trocar that is punctured into the tissue to be examined, a hollow trocar that is inserted into the trocar so that it can move forward and backward, and a tip of the trocar that a probe needle whose conical tip protrudes from an opening and can be inserted into the tissue to be examined; and a probe needle arranged linearly along an axial direction on the outer wall of the tip portion of the probe needle in a direction perpendicular to the axial direction of the probe needle. a plurality of ultrasonic transducers that transmit ultrahigh-frequency sound waves capable of obtaining microscopic-level resolution and receive reflected waves; and an excitation signal generation circuit for causing the ultrasonic transducers to transmit the ultrahigh-frequency sound waves. , a scanning control circuit that electronically controls excitation signals to the plurality of ultrasound transducers; a receiving circuit that receives reflected waves received by the ultrasound transducers; and a scanning control circuit that electronically controls excitation signals to the plurality of ultrasound transducers; and an image display means for displaying an enlarged image at a microscopic level.

[Function] According to the above configuration, the probe needle is inserted protrusively into the test tissue from the tip opening of the hollow trocar punctured into the test tissue, and the probe needles are arranged in the axial direction around the outer periphery of the tip of the probe needle. Ultrasonic beams can be transmitted from the plurality of ultrasonic transducers to the test tissue close to the outer periphery of the probe needle. In this case, since the tip of the probe needle is formed into a conical shape, it is possible to easily project the probe needle into the anterior tissue with the trocar puncturing the tissue.

Here, the ultrasound beam can be transmitted directly to the test tissue that is in close contact with the outer periphery of the probe needle.
In order to perform ultrasound diagnosis of this tissue, it is sufficient that the penetration depth of the ultrasound beam is extremely small. Therefore, it is not necessary to ensure a large penetration depth of the ultrasonic beam, so it is possible to increase the frequency of the ultrasonic beam in order to obtain a high-resolution image on a microscopic level.

In addition, since a plurality of ultrasonic transducers are arranged in the axial direction around the outer circumference of the tip of the probe needle, by performing focus control and scan control of the transmission and reception of the ultrasonic beam of these ultrasonic transducers, A cross-sectional image of tissue with a width corresponding to the penetration depth of the ultrasound beam can be obtained within the length range of the ultrasound transducers in the array direction.

In this way, microscopic image information of the tissue can be obtained using the ultrasonic beam's microscopic resolution, and by displaying an enlarged image based on this, tissue diagnosis such as the presence or absence of a lesion can be performed more accurately. I can do it.

[Embodiments] Hereinafter, preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described based on the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows a partial perspective view of the tip of the trocar and probe needle, which are the characteristic components of the present invention. It is tapered to form an acute angle. The probe needle 12 is inserted into the inside of the trocar 10, and the probe needle 12 is configured so that its tip portion protrudes from its tip opening 10a. Here, the tip of the probe needle 12 is formed into a conical shape as shown in the figure, and is configured so that the probe needle can easily protrude into the anterior tissue while the trocar 10 is being punctured.

On the outer periphery of the tip of the probe 12, an ultrasonic oscillation section 16 is provided, which includes a plurality of ultrasonic transducers 14 arranged in the axial direction of the probe 12 and grounded. The length l of the oscillating unit 16 in the arrangement direction of the ultrasonic transducers 14 is approximately 5 mm.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a cross section of a portion of the probe needle 12 to which the ultrasonic oscillating section 14 is attached, and although it has a solid structure in this embodiment, it can also have a hollow structure. Each ultrasonic transducer 14 is attached to the peripheral wall of the probe needle 12 so as to transmit an ultrasonic beam outward. That is, the ultrasonic transducer 1
4, ultrasonic waves are transmitted in a direction perpendicular to the axial direction of the probe needle 12. A surface coating material 18 is provided on the surface side of the probe needle 12 sandwiching the ultrasonic transducer 14, and a damper material 20 is provided on the inner surface side of the ultrasonic transducer 14. Here, surface coating material 1
8 also functions as an acoustic lens for focusing the ultrasonic beam, and the damper material 20 provides acoustic absorption attenuation to the ultrasonic waves emitted from the ultrasonic transducer 14 to the back surface and displays them on the image. It functions to prevent this from happening.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing the main components of the puncture needle type ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to the present invention.
An excitation signal generation circuit 22 is connected to the ultrasonic oscillation section 14 provided at the tip of the ultrasonic wave generator 2, and a scan control circuit 23 is further connected to this excitation signal generation circuit 22. The excitation signal generation circuit 22 outputs a signal for causing the ultrasonic transducer 16 to transmit ultrahigh-frequency sound waves with a high frequency capable of obtaining microscopic-level resolution.

Then, the scanning control circuit 23 delays the transmission of the excitation signal to each ultrasonic transducer 16 from the ultrasonic oscillator 14, and performs focus control of the ultrasonic beam from each ultrasonic transducer 16. Furthermore, in order to perform scan control in the arrangement direction of each ultrasonic transducer 16, control is performed to drive the transducers while sequentially shifting them in the arrangement direction.

Further, a receiving circuit 24 is connected to the ultrasonic transducer 16, and the receiving circuit 24 is connected to the ultrasonic transducer 16.
It receives the reflected waves received by the receiver and performs amplification, A/D conversion, etc. The output signal from this receiving circuit 24 is sent to an image processing circuit 26, and the image processing circuit 26 performs signal processing for displaying an ultrasound diagnostic image on the CRT 28.

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be explained.

First, the trocar 10 is punctured into the tissue to be examined of the subject. At this time, the probe needle 12 is kept in a state in which it does not protrude from the tip opening 10a of the trocar 10.
That is, the trocar 10 is inserted into the tissue to be examined in the state shown in FIG. Then, the probe needle 1 is
2 and insert the tip into the tip opening 1 of the trocar 10.
The ultrasonic oscillator 1 is protruded from 0a and inserted into the tissue to be examined.
Insert 4.

Then, the ultrasonic oscillator 14 transmits a high-frequency ultrasonic beam capable of obtaining microscopic-level high resolution, for example, an ultrasonic beam with a frequency of about 400 to 500 MHz, toward the tissue to be examined. This 400
According to an ultrasonic beam with a frequency of ~500 MHz, the penetration depth into tissue is about 0.2 to 0.5 mm, but the resolution is high, so it is possible to display images down to the level of red blood cells of about 10 microns.

FIG. 5 shows the state in which the trocar 10 and probe needle 12 according to the embodiment are inserted into the tissue to be examined 30, and a region X is where the ultrasonic oscillator 14 transmits and receives ultrasonic waves. In other words, it shows an area where diagnosis is possible. This area X is determined by the length of the ultrasonic oscillator 14 in the ultrasonic transducer array direction and the ultrasonic beam penetration depth of 0.2 to 0.5 mm, and cross-sectional image information of this area X can be obtained.

That is, the ultrahigh frequency sound beam transmitted to this region
The image is displayed on 8. In this image display, a high-resolution image signal can be obtained by transmitting and receiving ultrahigh-frequency sound waves, so that it is possible to display an enlarged image of the region X on a microscopic level. In this manner, by performing a fine image diagnosis of a portion directly in contact with the tissue to be examined, it is possible to more accurately determine whether or not the tissue to be examined has a lesion, for example, whether it is cancerous tissue.

[Effects of the Invention] As explained above, according to the puncture needle type ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to the present invention, the ultrasound oscillator can be inserted directly into the tissue to be examined using the puncture needle. It is not necessary to ensure the penetration depth of the sound beam, and ultrasonic image diagnosis becomes possible using high-frequency ultrahigh-frequency sound waves that have a small penetration depth but can provide microscopic-level resolution. Thereby, ultrasonic image diagnosis can be performed by obtaining minute image information of the tissue to be examined. Therefore, the reliability of diagnosis of lesions, etc. of the tissue to be examined is further improved. Furthermore, since the tip of the probe needle is formed into a conical shape, the probe needle can be easily projected into the anterior tissue after puncturing the tissue with the trocar.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Fig. 1 is a perspective view of the tip of the trocar and probe needle of the embodiment, Fig. 2 is a cross-sectional view of the tip of the probe, and Fig. 3 is a block diagram showing the main configuration of the embodiment. 4
The figure is a perspective view showing the trocar at the time of puncturing the test tissue. FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram showing the diagnostic area of the embodiment. DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10... Throat needle, 12... Probe needle, 14... Ultrasonic oscillation part, 16... Ultrasonic transducer, 18... Surface coating material, 20... Damper material, 22... Excitation signal generation circuit, 23... Scanning control circuit, 24 ...receiving circuit, 26
...Image processing circuit, 28...CRT.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. A hollow trocar that is punctured into the test tissue, and a conical tip that is inserted into the trocar so that it can move forward and backward, and can be inserted into the test tissue by protruding from the opening at the tip of the trocar. a probe needle, which is arranged linearly along the axial direction on the outer wall of the tip of the probe needle, and transmits ultrahigh-frequency sound waves capable of obtaining microscopic level resolution in a direction perpendicular to the axial direction of the probe needle. a plurality of ultrasonic transducers for receiving reflected waves from the perilla; an excitation signal generation circuit for transmitting the ultrahigh frequency sound waves from the ultrasonic transducers; and electronic control of excitation signals to the plurality of ultrasonic transducers. a scanning control circuit that receives reflected waves received by the ultrasonic transducer; and an image display unit that displays a microscopically enlarged image of the tissue to be examined based on the output signal from the receiving circuit. A puncture needle type ultrasonic diagnostic device comprising: