| US 7,569,016 B2 | ||
| Ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus | ||
| Yoshinobu Watanabe, Yokohama (Japan); Yoshinao Tannaka, Aiko-gun (Japan); Takao Suzuki, Yokohama (Japan); and Hisashi Hagiwara, Yokohama (Japan) | ||
| Assigned to Panasonic Corporation, Osaka (Japan) | ||
| Appl. No. 10/562,550 PCT Filed Jul. 02, 2004, PCT No. PCT/JP2004/009792 § 371(c)(1), (2), (4) Date Dec. 29, 2005, PCT Pub. No. WO2005/002446, PCT Pub. Date Jan. 13, 2005. |
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| Claims priority of application No. 2003-191310 (JP), filed on Jul. 03, 2003. | ||
| Prior Publication US 2008/0125651 A1, May 29, 2008 | ||
| Int. Cl. A61B 8/00 (2006.01) | ||
| U.S. Cl. 600—438 [600/437; 600/454; 600/481; 382/128] | 18 Claims |
| 1. An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus, comprising:
transmission means for transmitting at least one ultrasonic signal from a surface of a skin of a subject toward a blood vessel
of the subject;
reception means for receiving an ultrasonic echo reflected by the blood vessel and converting the ultrasonic echo into an
electric signal to obtain the ultrasonic echo signal in a depth direction from the surface of the skin;
movement detection means for analyzing a phase of the ultrasonic echo signal in a direction traversing the blood vessel to
calculate a movement amount of a blood vessel wall composing the blood vessel;
analysis means for analyzing a state of the blood vessel based on a difference of a track of movement of the blood vessel
wall whose movement amount was calculated with respect to time;
boundary position detection means for detecting a boundary position between a blood flow region and the blood vessel wall
of the blood vessel based on a result of the analysis by the analysis means; and
stability judgment means for comparing the boundary position detected by the boundary position detection means with a detection
result in a previous heartbeat cycle, thereby judging stability of a measurement state.
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