US-20260123907-A1 - ULTRASONIC DIAGNOSTIC APPARATUS, LEARNING APPARATUS, AND IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD

US20260123907A1US 20260123907 A1US20260123907 A1US 20260123907A1US-20260123907-A1

Abstract

An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus, comprising: an ultrasonic probe configured to transmit and receive ultrasonic waves to and from an object; and an estimation calculating unit configured to estimate data based on blood flow information from third data based on a received signal for image generation received by the ultrasonic probe by using a model having been machine-learned from learning data including first data based on a received signal for image generation that is obtained from an observation region and second data based on blood flow information of the observation region.

Inventors

Shoya Sasaki
Naoya Iizuka
Kenichi Nagae

Assignees

CANON KABUSHIKI KAISHA

Dates

Publication Date: 20260507
Application Date: 20260106
Priority Date: 20200124

Claims (1)

1 . An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus, comprising: an ultrasonic probe configured to transmit and receive ultrasonic waves to and from an object; and an estimation calculating unit configured to estimate data based on blood flow information from third data based on a received signal for image generation received by the ultrasonic probe by using a model having been machine-learned from learning data including first data based on a received signal for image generation that is obtained from an observation region and second data based on blood flow information of the observation region.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE OF RELATED APPLICATIONS This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 17/153,351, filed on Jan. 20, 2021, which claims the benefit of Japanese Patent Application No. 2020-009950, filed on Jan. 24, 2020, all of which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety. BACKGROUND Field of the Disclosure The present disclosure relates to an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus, a learning apparatus, and an image processing method and, in particular, to a technique for improving image quality of an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus. Description of the Related Art Ultrasonic diagnostic apparatuses are widely used in clinical practice as image diagnostic apparatuses due to, for example, simplicity, high resolution performance, and real-time performance thereof. A general method of generating an ultrasonic image includes beamforming of a transmit beam and phasing addition processing of a received signal. Beamforming of a transmit beam is performed by inputting a voltage waveform provided with a time delay relative to a plurality of conversion elements and causing ultrasonic waves to converge inside a living organism. Phasing addition of a received signal is performed by receiving ultrasonic waves reflected by a structure inside a living organism by a plurality of conversion elements, and providing to obtained received signals a time delay in consideration of a path length with respect to a point of interest, and then adding up the received signals. Due to the beamforming of the transmit beam and the phasing addition processing, reflected signals from the point of interest are selectively extracted to perform imaging. By performing control so that the inside of an imaging region is scanned by the transmit beam, it is possible to obtain an image of a region desired to be observed. In such ultrasonic diagnostic apparatuses, the Doppler method in which blood flow information is imaged using the Doppler effect is widely used. One such Doppler method is the color Doppler method. In the color Doppler method, transmission/reception of an ultrasonic pulse is performed a plurality of times on a same scan line and a phase difference (an amount of Doppler shift) of a component derived from blood flow is extracted from received signals. The extraction of an amount of Doppler shift is performed by applying an MTI (Moving Target Indicator) filter to received signals at a same position but of different time series, and reducing components (clutter components) derived from tissue with small movement. Blood flow information (Doppler information) such as a velocity and a dispersion of blood flow is obtained from the extracted component derived from the blood flow. Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H01-153144 discloses the Doppler method using an MTI filter. Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2019-25044 discloses a medical imaging apparatus using a restorer constituted by a neural network. SUMMARY A maximum velocity that can be acquired by the color Doppler method is known to be constrained by a repetition frequency of an ultrasonic pulse. Since a component with a frequency higher than the repetition frequency causes aliasing when calculating a phase difference, the component becomes indistinguishable from a component with a low frequency. For example, since the observation of a deep part requires lowering of the repetition frequency, there is a limit to velocities that can be acquired. In addition, in the color Doppler method, blood flow information is displayed by being superimposed on a normal B-mode image. Therefore, in addition to transmission/reception of an ultrasonic pulse for creating a normal B-mode image, transmission/reception of an ultrasonic pulse for a color Doppler image also has to be performed. As a result, a frame rate drops more in a normal B-mode. Furthermore, while the number of transmissions/receptions of an ultrasonic pulse on a same scan line may be increased in order to improve color Doppler accuracy, this causes a further drop in the frame rate. The present disclosure has been proposed in consideration of the problem described above and an object thereof is to provide an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus that enables blood flow information (Doppler information) of a wide range to be obtained while reducing an effect of a drop in a frame rate. The disclosure includes an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus, comprising: an ultrasonic probe configured to transmit and receive ultrasonic waves to and from an object; and an estimation calculating unit configured to estimate data based on blood flow information from third data based on a received signal for image generation received by the ultrasonic probe by using a model having been machine-learned from learning data including first data based on a received signal for image generation that is obtained from an observation region and second data based on blood flow information of the observation region. The disclos