Conventional ultrasound transducers for noninvasive probing of a patient's body, often include a fixed array of transducers connected to a flexible cable. The cable extends to circuitry that generates electrical pulses that cause the transducers to produce acoustic pulses. The circuitry also includes a data processor for processing data representing echoes of the acoustic pulses. The echoes can be detected by the same transducers that produce the acoustic pulses, or by separate transducers that are used only for detection. The circuitry that generates electrical pulses controls the output of the array of transducers so the acoustic beam has a narrow spread angle, and so the acoustic beam can be steered so it passes in a desired direction from the array.
The array can be pressed against a selected location on the patient's body, with acoustic gel used for efficient acoustic coupling, as to detect a region of large change in density. The acoustic echoes of the transmitted beam can be used to generate a display indicating change in density at a certain depth within the pressed-against body location. However, there are typically multiple changes in density between the skin and the location of interest, which create multiple echoes that appear as speckle, clutter and other noise artifacts and that reduce contrast at strongly interacting tissue interfaces. An acoustic probe device that could be easily used by a caregiver to produce echoes that the data processor could use to produce a display or other indication of tissue density, with reduced noise artifacts, would be of value.
In accordance with one embodiment of the present invention, an acoustic body probe is provided, which facilitates the making of an acoustic analysis of a location on a patient's body, and which enables the use of a plurality of separated acoustic transducers together to obtain a better analysis. The acoustic body probe includes a glove device that can be worn on a person's hand and that includes at least one and preferably a plurality of finger receivers that receive fingers of the caregiver. The acoustic body probe also includes a plurality of separate sonic transmit/receive transducer devices, each mounted on a different one of the finger receivers and/or elsewhere, that can be each pressed against a different location on a region of the patient's body simply by the caregiver's fingers pressing the transducers against such different locations. The outputs of a plurality of different transducer devices can be numerically processed to reduce artifacts (spurious signals) that would be produced by any one of them alone. The outputs are used to produce one or more images for human analysis.
The glove device is of the type that produces signals indicating the relative positions of the different finger receivers, and of the different acoustic transducers that are used together. This enables a more rigorous analysis of the patient by taking into consideration the positions of the transducers.
The glove device includes a palm area that covers the palm of the caregiver. An array of acoustic transducers can be mounted on the palm area to provide an additional location where acoustic energy can be detected and/or transmitted. A large palm area allows a larger array of acoustic transducers to be located there than on the finger receivers.
Pressure sensors can lie between each transducer device and the glove device. Body tissue is malleable, and measurement of the force with which each transducer device presses against the body can be useful in evaluating the acoustic output signals.
The novel features of the invention are set forth with particularity in the appended claims. The invention will be best understood from the following description when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
Each acoustic transducer device 31-35 preferably includes an array of sonic transducers, preferably a two-dimensional array of at least 3×3=9 transducers, such as the 8×8 array 31 in
The glove device is of a type that enables detection of the positions and orientations of different locations on the glove, such as the fingertips 50 where the transducer devices 31-35 are located. The relative positions of the fingertips can be determined by position sensors indicated at 51-53 that detect pivoting of different joints of each finger. Examples of such glove devices is a “Cyberglove” sold by VR Glove Technologies Immersion Corp., and a “5DT Data Glove” sold by the 5DT company. Bending of the finger receivers, especially at joints at 54 and 55 and especially about lateral axes 56 and 58, enables selection of the position and orientation of the transducer devices 31-35 in the fingers above the joint at 52. The finger receivers preferably also allow pivoting about a longitudinal axis 59.
The second transducer device 31 also probes the location of interest 64, when transducer device 35 is not operating. The location of device 31 relative to the first device is known by the position sensors in the glove device. The direction of the beam and time delay at which an echo is detected are adjusted accordingly. Device 31 produces a pulsed beam 80 that is reflected from location 64 to produce an echo 82. The beam is steered to move at an angle of a plurality of degrees to the direction in which the transducer device face 83 is facing. A portion of the original beam 80 is reflected at the region 66 to produce reflections 84, but the reflections 84 are not received back at the transducer 31 at the time that the echo 82 is received. Thus, the region 66 produces an artifact in the output of transducer device 35 but not in transducer device 31. This difference can be used to reduce artifacts that degrade the signal. In actuality, there will be many internal reflections of the original pulse from blood vessels, etc. The use of two or more transducer devices that probe the location of interest from different locations enables the generation of a clearer image of the location of interest.
The glove device 12 of
When applicant's transducer devices are pressed against the body, body tissue deforms, with the deformation dependent upon the force that is applied. The level of applied force can help in constructing a truer image of body features. Such forces are readily determinable by placing compression force sensors 100 (
When the transducer devices are not energized, the switch 130 delivers outputs from the transducer devices that represent echoes or detected direct transmission beams, to a signal conditioning circuit 132. The output from the signal conditioning circuit 132 is delivered through additional processing circuitry 134 to the system computer 110. In most cases, an application-specific processor 140 of the system computer displays data representing detected sonic energy as an image on a screen. Where at least two transducers are used to each detect sonic energy, especially echoes, the outputs of the two transducer devices can be used to construct a three-dimensional image. Perhaps the most practical display is a display of echoes received from a plurality of transducer devices, with speckles, clutter and noise reduced by eliminating noise detected by one transducer device but not by others at the same location in the body.
Thus, the invention provides apparatus for sonically probing a body, which facilitates positioning of sonic transducer devices against selected locations on the body. This is accomplished by mounting one or more transducer devices on a flexible holder that not only facilitates movement and tilting of the transducer devices, but which can provide an output indicating the positions and orientations of the transducer devices. Transducer devices are preferably mounted on finger receivers of a glove device, and especially of a glove device that produces an output indicating the positions and orientations of the finger receivers. A larger array of transducers can be mounted on the palm area of the glove device.
Although particular embodiments of the invention have been described and illustrated herein, it is recognized that modifications and variations may readily occur to those skilled in the art, and consequently, it is intended that the claims be interpreted to cover such modifications and equivalents.