Ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus

Patent 5186176 Issued on February 16, 1993. Estimated Expiration Date:

April 9, 2011. Estimated Expiration Date is calculated based on simple USPTO term provisions. It does not account for terminal disclaimers, term adjustments, failure to pay maintenance fees, or other factors which might affect the term of a patent.

Abstract Claims Description Full Text

Patent References

Ultrasonic blood flow measuring apparatus
Patent #: 4416286
Issued on: 11/22/1983
Inventor: Iinuma , et al.

Ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus
Patent #: 4630612
Issued on: 12/23/1986
Inventor: Uchida , et al.

Method and system for measuring an ultrasound tissue characterization
Patent #: 4830015
Issued on: 05/16/1989
Inventor: Okazaki

Method for determining blood flow through a narrowed orifice using color doppler echocardiography
Patent #: 4913159
Issued on: 04/03/1990
Inventor: Gardin, et al.

Method and apparatus for the measurement and medical treatment using an ultrasonic wave Patent #: 5040537
Issued on: 08/20/1991
Inventor: Katakura

Inventors

Application

No. 682375 filed on 04/09/1991

US Classes:

600/447, Electronic array scanning600/440, Plural display mode systems600/441, Having B-scan and Doppler600/459Structure of transducer or probe assembly

Examiners

Primary: Howell, Kyle L.
Assistant: Manuel, George

Attorney, Agent or Firm

Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett and Dunnar

International Class

A61B 008/12

Foreign Application Priority Data

1990-04-11 JP

Abstract

An ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus comprises an ultrasonic probe like a biplane probe having two ultrasonic transducers, a switch for selecting one of the ultrasonic transducers, a transmitting-receiving system for driving an ultrasonic transducer selected by the switch to transmit and receive ultrasonic waves, a B-mode image producing means responsive to a receive signal from the ultrasonic transducer driven by the transmitting-receiving system for producing an ultrasonic cross-sectional image, a scanning-plane mark generator for generating a scanning-plane mark indicating the positional relationship between the ultrasonic scanning plane formed by the ultrasonic transducer selected by the switch and the other ultrasonic scanning plane formed by the other ultrasonic transducer and a TV monitor for displaying a superimposition image in which the scanning-plane mark generated by the scanning-plane mark generator is superimposed on the ultrasonic cross-sectional image produced by the B-mode image producing system.