Handheld Ultrasound Vessels Imager Facilitating Intravascular Injection
Technical field
The apparatus is an application of using ultrasound in medicine .The apparatus uses the ultrasound waves to produce an image for the superficial vessels that lie under the apparatus .This image is used to facilitate intravascular injection
Background Art
The ultrasound have been used in producing an Image of internal body organs this occurs by means of B-scan devices which produce sector image about the scanned underlying structure of body organs
The ultrasound also is used in another manner to give us important information about the flow of the blood in arteries and heart by employing what known Doppler phenomenon.
The combination of these two Important techniques we can study and diagnose any problems with artery . this is known by Duplex system which produce a B-scan image on a monitor then other transducer (which employ Doppler phenomenon ) used to collect information about blood flow.
Limited Tries have been made to produce a device to detect the superficial veins to facilitate the cannula application or injection. But all these tries only try to find the vein by forming a sign which indicates the place of the vein like turn on a LED (light emitting diode )
Disclosure of the invention
The apparatus consists of 3 main units IV The Array of Transducers This array contains two types of transducer elements a)- Type A transducer which occupies the majority of the array (it produces planar waves perpendicular to the skin) b)- type B transducer exists only on the borders of the array( it produces planar waves with 45 degree to the skin) we can manufacture this array by the conventional means where the array is rigid.
Or we can made the base of the array from a flexible material and connect the elements to it this will increase the contact area between the skin and
the transducer elements without any pressure on the superficial blood vessels
2>The Main unit for processing and control Tins unit consists of three units
Array control unit
Which consists of 4 sub units
A)- The oscillators unit it contain two controlled oscillators (A,B)
Oscillator A controls the frequency of array elements A
Oscillator B controls the frequency of array elements B
B)- The mode control Unit
It controls the Mode of every Element in the Array which means the state of it
There are four stats
1 - Transmitting ultrasonic waves
2- Receiving (l)ultrasonic Echoes
3- Receiving (2)ultrasonic Echoes
4- Idle
These stats are chosen according to the need for element to work on each mode.
C)- focusing control unit
This unit controls the time of firing of each element to control the focal distance of the produced ultrasonic beam to obtain the best resolution and accuracy
D)-Elements' Binder Unit
This unit control which elements and how many elements are used to produce the beam and supply informatioii about their coordinates regarding to the array coordinates to the CPU (central processing unit)
Signal processing Unit
It consists of seven sub units A)-SJ2nal Amplifier (1)
When the mode is set to receiving(l) the echo received at the transducer is very weak and produce only little voltage on the transducers' output so this voltage has to be amplified to processed further on.
B)- Time Gain Compensator
It amplifies the output of the signal amplifier to make sure that echoes attenuated due to traveling more distance in Body tissues is amplified more than those which reflected from near interfaces.
C)-Rectification and Envelope Detector
This unit rectifies the output of Time Gain Compensator and detect the Maximum Peaks of the pulse
D)-Analo2 to Digital Converter (1)
This Unit converts the Analog output of the envelope detector unit To Digital output
E)-SJ2nal Amplifier (2)
It amplifies the signal of elements when the mode is set to receiving (2)
F)-Frecιuencv Comparator
This unit analyze the difference between the frequency of the Received signal (in receiving mode 2) and the frequency of Oscillator (B)
G)- Analog to Digital Converter (2)
To convert the output signal of frequency comparator to digital one to allow deteraiining the velocity of blood flow and its' direction.
Central processing Unit
This unit is Master Mind of the Apparatus it controls all the Activities of the Apparatus it consists of
I)- microprocessor
2)- the RAM to the instantaneous manipulation of data
3)- the flash ROM which contains the firmware the microprocessor will use to control the Apparatus and produce the Digital Image which will appear on the monitor the flash ROM will contain the code that enable the Micro processor to do what is known (Pattern recognition )
Pattern Recognition which involves drawing a digital Image for the superficial vessels by drawing a primary Image from the first strong Echoes detected by the Array-(excluding of course any echo from skin)- wliich will give us all the superficial tissues e.g. Nerves ,Veins and bones then we remove the patterns which contains No moving blood So we obtain an Image for the Superficial vessels Under the Array of transducers.
3)- The Display Unit it consists of a small colored LCD (liquid crystal Display) Monitor which will receive the produced digital Image and display it in coordinates relevant to the coordinates of The Array of elements to facilitate the cannulation or Injection
HOW THE DEVICE WORKS
When the device is put on the body and set to on position The array of transducers elements will begin the scan operation This means that some elements are activated together to send a collimated ultrasonic beam focused at 15mm depth from the skin surface then the first column of these elements will stop transmitting and another line which is next to these elements will start to send ultrasonic wave and the operation still going till the first row is finished
Then those combined elements will start again but leaving the first row elements off transmitting and add the next row elements instead this operation will continue till the scan operation is up this first scan uses the array elements a
After finishing this primary scan the array element a will produce abeam with 45 degree to the skin this beam also is produced by first b element and continue till the elements finished
The elements of array will listen to the Echoes and accept only the first powerful echoes in the range 0.2 to 2 cm depth and gather data which will be manipulated by the processor after this stage the elements will wait to receive Echoes of the waves scattered on the blood red cells and supply this information to microprocessor
The microprocessor will run the pattern recognition code on this data and produce the desired digital Image
The Display monitor will receive this data and show the image on its coordinates and beside each blood vessel we will find the depth of it . The user will easily be able to but the cannula in the right place because of coordinated array of elements too.
The device uses high frequencies to produce the image this of course will increase the resolution and accuracy
If the device is left on his place on the body after the primary image appears it will the collected data to change the focal distance to get better image and only the elements beside near the vessels will still work to produce a real time image and fast also this of course will save the battery power
The device could be connected to a keyboard for changing some settings like date
And may also be connected to the PC to update its' ROM or check the device or calibrate it by using a special software
Brief Description of Drawings
FIG .1 the view of the monitor while the device is working
11-Suprficial vessels
12- Monitor coordinates
13- Display Monitor
FIG.2 Array
21- the logical arrays winch constitute the Array of transducers
FIG.3 Conventional Array
31 - element A of the Array
32 - element B of the Array
FIG.4 the Array of transducers with flexible Base
41- Element of The Array
FIG.5 Elevation view of the Apparatus
51 -Display Monitor
52- USB port to connect the apparatus to the computer
53- ON/OFF switch
54-The Body of the Apparatus Which contains the Central Unit for Processing and control 55- keyboard port 56-connecting rod 57-Aiτay of Transducers
FIG.6 Plan view of the Apparatus
61- connecting rod
62- Array of Transducers
63- Display Monitor
FIG.7 three dimension view of the Apparatus on the Arm
71 - superficial veins
72- the Image of the veins
73- Display Monitor
74- Array of Transducers showing its coordinates 75-The Arm
76- keyboard port
77- USB port to connect the apparatus to the computer
78- ON/OFF switch
79- keyboard
FIG.8 Block Diagram of the Apparatus
81- Element A
82- Element B
83- Oscillator A
84- Focusing Control Unit 85-Oscillator B 86-Mode control unit
87- Clock
88- Element binding unit 89- Amplifier (1)
810- Time Gain Compensator
811- Rectification and envelope, detector unit 812- Amplifier (2)
813- Frequency comparator
814-Analog to Digital converter (2)
815- Analog to Digital converter (1)
816- Flash ROM
817- Micro processor
818- RAM
819- Display Unit