伊藤 健一¹, 渋谷 昇¹, 瀬沼 訓行¹, 明石 健一¹, 猿楽 寿雄¹, 横井 浩², 吉川 義博³, 平福 三吉³

Ken-ichi ITO¹, Noboru SHIBUYA¹, Noriyuki SENUMA¹, Ken-ichi AKASHI¹, Toshio SARUGAKU¹, Hiromu YOKOI², Yoshihiro YOSHIKAWA³, Sankichi HlRAFUKU³

¹東京農工大学工学部電子工学科, ²大阪日生病院, ³アロカ株式会社

¹Tokyo University of Agriculture and technology, faculty of electronic engineering, ²Nissei Hospital, ³Aloka Co. Ltd.

キーワード : F-mode method, digital scan converter, microcomputer, light pen, electroscanning equipment

Recently the electroscanning high speed B- and C-scan ultrasonic diagnostic system have been developed and become the most popular ultrasonic instrument for clinical examinations. Extending the idea of C-mode method, a new diagnostic scanning method was introduced and named F-mode method, in order to view internal organs and their lesions completely and three-dimensionally.
To provide a new scanning method, we have developed a new real-time ultrasonic diagnostic system with digital frame memory units.
The F-mode scanning method makes it possible to obtain the echo image from the free diagnostic plane of the lesion by moving the electroscanning probe manually or mechanically in the other direction as the electroscanning direction.
The advantages of the newly developed system are as follows,
(1) A new scanning mode, called Flexible mode or F-mode, was developed. Ultrasonic echo images from free surfaces in the human body can be obtained by the F-mode unit.
(2) The diagnostic plane is indicated with three different methods, hardware logic circuit, microcomputer and light pen.
(3) Real-time dynamic and frozen images of tissue can be observed.
In this paper the characteristic features of the developed system and clinical applications are described.