WO2015119338A1 - Method for guiding scan position of three-dimensional ultrasound probe and ultrasound diagnostic system employing same - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to an ultrasound diagnostic system employing a method for recognizing the positon and shape of an organ through a three-dimensional ultrasound scan to display, on a screen, a scan guide suitable for the organ, and the purpose of the present invention is to improve the convenience and accuracy of scanning by providing optimal position and angle information of an organ during a three-dimensional ultrasound scan. The present invention comprises: an ultrasound imaging unit for acquiring the information on the inside of a human body through information on an ultrasound reflected from an object; an image generation unit for reconfiguring the acquired data in a three-dimensional volume form; an image processing unit for providing an angle, a position, and a distance suitable for scanning by determining the absolute position and angle of the acquired image through the recognition of the organ in the generated image; an image storage unit which has a plurality of sample images stored therein and stores the captured organ volume image; and a display unit for providing a correction message by which the scanning angle and position with respect to the image generated in the ultrasound imaging unit can be corrected.

Description

Scan Position Guide Method for Three-Dimensional Ultrasound Probes and Ultrasound Diagnostics Including the Method

The present invention relates to a technology for providing a smart guide that informs the angle and position of the scan to assist in the scanning diagnosis of the three-dimensional ultrasound diagnostic apparatus, and in particular, extracts the features from the three-dimensional volume image and compares and analyzes the sample image. The present invention relates to a diagnostic apparatus including a scan position guide method and a guide method of a three-dimensional ultrasound probe which can provide an accurate guide of an angle and a measurement position during scanning.

In general, the ultrasonic diagnostic device is a technology that shows the information inside the human body by appropriately processing the signal through the response time of the reflected wave returning through the ultrasonic wave inside the human body. It is a technology that allows you to observe the presence or absence of the inside of the body in real time.

The sound wave used in the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus is a wave that is inaudible to human being, usually 20khz ~ 30MHz, and is harmless to the human body, so it is widely used in various medical fields such as clinical diagnosis and surgery.

Recently, the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus has been changed from analog to digital, and from two-dimensional ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus to three-dimensional and four-dimensional ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus. In order to obtain such a three-dimensional image, a probe having a 2D array or the like or a swing motor method is used.

In recent years, there have been many innovations in the technical field of 3D imaging, volume data correction technology (Korea Patent Publication, 10-2011-0039506), and various methods of forming 3D output using 3D ultrasound. Technological advances have been made, but there have been few cases where 3D ultrasound imaging has been used clinically in addition to fetal ultrasound.

The clinical advantage of using 3D ultrasound is that the 3D volume data can be used to more accurately determine the organs of the human body. It can be observed comprehensively.

However, even if a medical professional does not have sufficient education in advance, it is not easy for an ultrasound diagnosis device to recognize and determine a diagnosis, and to find out an accurate lesion or organ. The barrier was high.

In order to solve this problem, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2011-104137 creates a cursor for a cross section or direction of a three-dimensional volume image including maternal and fetal information in a three-dimensional ultrasound diagnostic system to display a relatively easy to understand model image. It shows how to implement it. However, the technique is relatively easy to show the position or angle of the cross-section of the captured image, it is quite difficult to use the non-specialist medical personnel lacking knowledge of the ultrasonic diagnostic device.

In addition, even if you have fully learned about the ultrasound diagnostic device, there is no technology to render the 3D ultrasound image at a glance smoothly, so it is difficult for the operator to know exactly whether the image was properly captured when scanning with 3D ultrasound. have.

In order to solve the problems of the prior art as described above, the present invention is performed by the operator through the ultrasound diagnosis and diagnostic method to provide a scan position guide consisting of an ultrasound imaging unit, an image generating unit, an image processing unit, an image storage unit, a display unit The purpose is to provide a method that can be easily taken without feeling the burden.

In addition, the present invention has another purpose to immediately give an instruction while analyzing the three-dimensional volume image in real time, to help quickly and accurately photograph the organ image of the patient suitable for diagnosis.

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides an ultrasound imaging unit for obtaining internal information of the human body through the ultrasound information reflected from the object, an image generator for reconstructing the obtained data into a three-dimensional volume form, long-term recognition of the generated image An image processor for determining the absolute position and angle of the acquired image and presenting the angle and position and distance suitable for scanning, and storing a plurality of sample images, and an image storage unit for storing the captured long-term volume image. And a display unit for providing a correction message for correcting a scan angle and a position of the image generated by the ultrasound imaging unit.

In addition, another object of the present invention is to take a three-dimensional ultrasound scan from the object to obtain a three-dimensional volume image by taking a three-dimensional ultrasound and image acquisition step (S1), to determine the type of organ to be compared to the organ to be analyzed Comparing organ type identification step (S2) to determine which location of the site is the organ, organ volume image position determination step (S3) to determine the position difference between the volume image of the current organ and the ideal organ volume image, the current shot Determining whether the position of one long-term volume image is a suitable position for scanning and storing the image (S4), and providing a suitable direction and position guide for showing the indication about a suitable direction and position on the display unit 150 ( S5), a long term image information storing step (S6) of storing information on the captured organ image.

As described above, the method of guiding the scanning position of the three-dimensional ultrasound probe and the ultrasound diagnostic apparatus including the method recognize organs and present ideal positions and angles even if they are not skilled, thereby helping to quickly and easily scan each organ and each lesion. There is this.

In addition, the present invention has another effect of helping the operator to accurately scan the site of the organ by inspecting in advance whether all of the organs are photographed.

1 is a block diagram schematically showing an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus including a scan position guide method of a three-dimensional ultrasonic probe according to the present invention.

Figure 2 is a flow chart illustrating a scan position guide method of the three-dimensional ultrasonic probe in accordance with the present invention.

3 is a flowchart showing a three-dimensional ultrasound organ recognition method according to the present invention.

Figure 4 is an embodiment for guiding to move the position of the probe during the three-dimensional diagnosis according to the present invention.

Figure 5 is an embodiment for guiding to move the position of the probe during the three-dimensional diagnosis according to the present invention.

Figure 6 is an embodiment for guiding to move the angle of the probe during the three-dimensional diagnosis according to the present invention.

Figure 7 is an embodiment for guiding to move the angle of the probe during the three-dimensional diagnosis according to the present invention.

The terms or words used in this specification and claims are not to be construed as being limited to their ordinary or dictionary meanings, and the inventors may appropriately define the concept of terms in order to best describe their invention. It should be interpreted as meaning and concept corresponding to the technical idea of the present invention based on the principle that the present invention.

Therefore, the embodiments described in the specification and the drawings shown in the drawings are only one of the most preferred embodiments of the present invention and do not represent all of the technical idea of the present invention, it is possible to replace them at the time of the present application It should be understood that there may be various equivalents and variations.

1 is a block diagram schematically illustrating an ultrasound diagnostic apparatus including a scan position guide method of a 3D ultrasound probe according to the present invention. As shown in FIG. 1, the ultrasound diagnostic apparatus including a scan position guide method of a 3D ultrasound probe may include an ultrasound imaging unit 110 for acquiring a 3D volume image and selectively storing the volume image as 3D volume data. Image generation unit 120, the comparative analysis of the features of the three-dimensional organ image to recognize the shape of the organ, the image processing unit 130 for calculating the angle and position suitable for scanning, storing or referring to the generated three-dimensional ultrasound image image And an image storage unit capable of importing a 3D sample ultrasound image required by the user, a display unit 150 showing a screen actually photographed on the screen of the ultrasound diagnosis apparatus, and guide instructions for assisting diagnosis based on the data analyzed by the processor. do.

The ultrasound imaging unit 110 is an apparatus capable of photographing organs in the body in three dimensions by using ultrasound, and is also called a 3D probe. Types of 3D probes include mechanical probes and electronic probes, and both have a common feature of capturing volume images in three dimensions. The mechanical probe linearly acquires a three-dimensional volume image through an internal motor, and has a wide range of shots, which is suitable for imaging the abdominal organs of the human body. On the other hand, the electronic probe can arrange the array in two dimensions to obtain a three-dimensional volume image without a motor, but has a disadvantage in that the measurement range is narrow and expensive. Electronic probes are useful for measuring cardiac ultrasound data and the like. Both probes may be selected by the ultrasound imaging unit 110 and have a common point of obtaining a volume image.

The image generator 120 selects an appropriate image from the volume image generated by the ultrasound imaging unit and converts the image into actual volume data. It may be regarded as an intermediate step for sending the 3D volume image to the image processor 130.

The image processor 130 recognizes the shape of the organ in the volume image generated by the ultrasound imaging unit and determines whether the location and angle of the organ are suitable for diagnosis. In order to recognize the shape of an organ, an algorithm for analyzing and recognizing the features of the organ is used.

In order to analyze the characteristics of organs, an algorithm is used to obtain images of a large number of sample organs, to extract the unique features of the samples of the organs, and to recognize whether they are organs when performing general ultrasound diagnosis. . An algorithm for recognizing this will be described later in more detail with reference to FIG. 3.

Once you're aware of the organs, the next step is to compare how far the organs are currently shot against the ideal criteria you've set up so you know the angle and location. The angle and the photographing position are judged to what extent they are compared with the photographing position and the angle of the organ to be ideally positioned.

The image storage unit 140 is a volume image storage that stores sample data to be compared in advance in the image processing unit or stores a volume image photographed. Files saved as images can have various extensions such as 3D Dicom, Jpeg, etc., and this image storage unit can also be linked with an online server to load other medical device images.

The display unit 150 includes a display providing unit which analyzes an image and analyzes photographing angles to provide guide instructions based on the corrected data, and outputs a symbol or the like as described above. Various guides provided in the display unit will be described in detail with reference to FIG. 2.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating a method of guiding a scan position of a 3D ultrasound probe according to the present invention, and illustrates a procedure of guiding when a 3D ultrasound image is input.

First, when the 3D image is acquired by the ultrasound imaging unit 110 (S11), the organ and the type of the object to be compared are determined to determine whether the organ is captured in the image. After that, it is determined whether the position of the organ thus caught is appropriate, and based on this, the position of the organ image is determined (S13). For the determination, the image processor 130 performs analysis for the determination.

Thereafter, if the position and angle are appropriate (S14), the information of the long-term image is stored (S16). If the information of the long-term image is not appropriate, the proper angle and position guide is provided (S15).

3 is a flowchart illustrating a three-dimensional ultrasonic organ recognition method according to the present invention, and as illustrated in FIGS. 1 and 2, illustrates a method of recognizing an organ of an image acquired by the ultrasound imaging unit 110. .

First, after acquiring an image of an organ (S21), only a portion of the organ containing an image of the organ is detected (S22) by analyzing a sample image stored in advance. Classifier algorithms such as AdaBoost (Adaptive Boosting) Classifier are included to detect the parts containing organ images.

The image information of the detected organs is sorted through the Active Appearance Mode (S23), and the values therein are modeled into a subspace reduced to a lower dimension using a PCA (Principal Component Analysis) and converted into parameter forms.

After recognizing the pattern, the long-term feature extraction (S24) is sorted into any numerical matrix vector through LDA (Linear Discriminate Analysis), and the feature is compared (S26) to refer to the long-term feature DB (S25). Find out if your liver, kidney, spleen, or other organs. Finally, the organs are recognized (S27) using these data values.

FIG. 4 is an embodiment for guiding the position of the probe during the 3D diagnosis according to the present invention, and shows an example of how it may appear on the display unit 150.

FIG. 5 is an embodiment for guiding the position of the probe during the 3D diagnosis according to the present invention, and shows an example of how it may appear on the display unit 150.

FIG. 6 illustrates an example in which the angle of the probe may be moved during the 3D diagnosis according to the present invention, and an example of how it may appear on the display unit 150 is shown.

FIG. 7 is an embodiment for guiding the angle of the probe during the three-dimensional diagnosis according to the present invention, and shows an example of how it may appear on the display unit 150.

Although the present invention has been shown and described with reference to the preferred embodiments as described above, it is not limited to the above embodiments and those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit of the present invention. Various changes and modifications will be possible.

Claims (14)

In the ultrasonic diagnostic machine, An ultrasound imaging unit which acquires internal body information through ultrasound information reflected from the object; An image generator for reconstructing the image acquired by the ultrasound imaging unit into an image in the form of a three-dimensional volume; An image processor for determining the absolute position and angle of the acquired image through long-term recognition of the image generated by the image generator and presenting an angle, position, and distance suitable for scanning; An image storage unit for storing a plurality of sample images, wherein the image storage unit stores an image acquired by the ultrasound imaging unit and an image of the 2D volume form; And And a display unit configured to display a correction message for correcting a scan angle and a position of the image acquired by the ultrasound imaging unit. The method of claim 1, And the image generating unit selects and stores the image according to the clarity and the image quality of the 3D volume-type image. The method of claim 1, And the image processor calculates an angle and a position suitable for a scan by recognizing the shape of an organ through comparative analysis of three-dimensional organ image features, and the scan position guide function of the three-dimensional ultrasound probe. The method of claim 3, wherein The comparative analysis of the three-dimensional long-term image features are characterized by informing the difference between the angle and position taken and the ideal angle and position by analyzing the similarity matching and feature points with the sample images stored in the image storage unit 3 Ultrasonic diagnostic device with scan position guide function of 3D ultrasonic probe. The method of claim 3, wherein The comparative analysis of the three-dimensional organ image features has a scan position guide function of the three-dimensional ultrasound probe, characterized in that the comparative analysis of the three-dimensional organ image features, including that can be defined before the information of the organ to be photographed One ultrasound diagnostic machine. The method of claim 1, The organ volume image stored in the image storage unit is a three-dimensional sample image of any one or more organs of a predefined liver, kidney, kidney, spleen, prostate, breast, ovary, bladder, and ultrasound image obtained through an ultrasound imaging unit. Ultrasonic diagnostic device having a scanning position guide function of the three-dimensional ultrasound probe, characterized in that. The method of claim 1, The image storage unit has a scan position guide function of the 3D ultrasound probe, characterized in that it is linked with the 3D long-term images in the server in real time in conjunction with the cloud server on-line to compare the online image, store, and compare the data. One ultrasound diagnostic machine. The method of claim 1, The image storage unit has a scan position guide function of the 3D ultrasound probe, characterized in that it is linked with the 3D long-term images in the server in real time in conjunction with the cloud server on-line to compare the online image, store, and compare the data. One ultrasound diagnostic machine. The method of claim 1, And the display unit displays one or more of a numerical value and a direction of a difference between an ideal position and an angle with respect to the acquired organ. In the scanning position guide method of the three-dimensional ultrasonic pro part, Photographing and acquiring images by 3D ultrasound to acquire a 3D volume image by capturing a 3D ultrasound scan from the object (S11); Comparing organ type identification step (S12) of grasping the organ type of the target to be compared to determine the organ to which location of the organ to be analyzed; A long-term volume image position determination step S13 of determining a position difference between the obtained long-term volume image and the ideal long-term volume image; Determining whether the position of the acquired long-term volume image is a suitable position for scanning and storing the image (S14); Providing a proper angle and position guide for displaying the indication about a suitable direction and position on the display unit 150 when it is not a suitable position for storing (S15); And And a long term image information storing step (S16) of storing information about the acquired long term image. The method of claim 10, In the step of identifying the organ types to be compared, a feature point is extracted in order to determine a shape estimated as an organ from the 3D volume image, and compared with the ideal organ images stored in the image storage 140. Scanning position guide method of dimensional ultrasound probe. The method of claim 10, The long-term volume image position determination step is to calculate the difference in position and angle through the difference between the organ and the ideal organ volume image obtained for the obtained three-dimensional volume image is calculated. How to guide the scan position of the probe. The method of claim 10, The step of identifying the organ type to be compared may include extracting a feature point of the acquired 3D volume image and comparing the ideal organ image to determine an organ type. The method of claim 10, The providing of the suitable direction and position guide may include displaying the organ shape recognized in the 3D volume image acquired by the display unit 150 in a rectangle and displaying a difference between an appropriate angle and a position. How to guide the scan position.

Images