Ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus and ultrasonic image processing method
A tomographic image includes a mammary gland image, a greater pectoral muscle image, and a boundary image. A plurality of search paths are set for the tomographic image. In each search path, a boundary search is executed from a deep spot toward a shallow spot. A region of interest is set so as to include the mammary gland image on the basis of a plurality of boundary points. An image portion in the region of interest is an image analysis target.
1. An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus comprising:
a detecting unit that detects a plurality of boundary points by setting a plurality of search paths so as to traverse a plurality of positions in a boundary image on an ultrasonic image including the boundary image and performing a boundary search from a deep spot to a shallow spot on the plurality of search paths, the boundary image having a form which extends in a direction intersecting with a depth direction; and
a generating unit that generates a region of interest including an attention tissue image present on a shallow side of the boundary image on the basis of the plurality of boundary points.
2. The ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to claim 1 ,
wherein the attention tissue image is a mammary gland image, and
the boundary image is a boundary image between the mammary gland image and a greater pectoral muscle image present at a spot deeper than that of the mammary gland image.
3. The ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to claim 1 ,
wherein the region of interest defines a portion that is an analysis target in the ultrasonic image or another ultrasonic image.
4. The ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to claim 1 ,
wherein a lower side of the region of interest is determined on the basis of a boundary point sequence including the plurality of boundary points, and
a smoothing unit that spatially smooths the lower side is provided.
5. The ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to claim 4 ,
wherein the smoothing unit further smooths the spatially smoothed lower side temporally.
6. The ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to claim 1 ,
wherein the detecting unit detects each of the boundary points on the basis of satisfaction of a luminance condition on each of the search paths.
7. The ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to claim 6 ,
wherein the detecting unit detects each of the boundary points on the basis of continuous satisfaction of the luminance condition on each of the search paths.
8. The ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to claim 7 ,
wherein the detecting unit detects each of the boundary points on the basis of continuous satisfaction of the luminance condition n times on each of the search paths, and
the value n is adaptively set on the basis of a diagnostic range.
9. The ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to claim 1 , further comprising
a display unit that displays a region-of-interest image showing the region of interest together with the ultrasonic image.
10. An ultrasonic image processing method comprising:
a generating step of generating a region of interest including an attention tissue image present on a shallow side of a boundary image on the basis of the boundary image, the boundary image having a form which extends in a direction intersecting with a depth direction on an ultrasonic image; and
a displaying step of displaying an image representing the region of interest together with an image representing a result of an analysis performed on an image portion in the region of interest in the ultrasonic image or another ultrasonic image,
wherein in the generating step, a boundary search from a deep spot to a shallow spot on the ultrasonic image is executed, and the region of interest is determined on the basis of a result of the boundary search.
11. A program executed in an ultrasonic image processing apparatus, comprising
a function of detecting a plurality of boundary points by setting a plurality of search paths so as to traverse a plurality of positions in a boundary image on an ultrasonic image including the boundary image and performing a boundary search from a deep spot to a shallow spot on the plurality of search paths, the boundary image having a form which extends in a direction intersecting with a depth direction; and
a function of generating a region of interest including an attention tissue image present on a shallow side of the boundary image on the basis of the plurality of boundary points.