Patent ID: 9357980
Filing Date: 2016-06-07
CPC Classification: A61B

Claim Text:
1. An ultrasound diagnostic apparatus which identifies a blood vessel of interest of a subject based on reflected ultrasound waves obtained from the subject using an ultrasound probe, the ultrasound diagnostic apparatus comprising: a tomographic image generation unit configured to generate tomographic images of the subject based on the reflected ultrasound waves; a blood flow information generation unit configured to generate blood flow information of a plurality of frames indicating blood flow regions of the subject in the tomographic images based on the reflected ultrasound waves; and a blood flow region determination unit configured to: (i) analyze the blood flow information generated by the blood flow information generation unit, (ii) one of (a) extract blood flow points indicating representative points of the blood flow regions to calculate relative positions of the blood flow points across the plurality of frames and extract the blood flow points as a blood flow group, and (b) compare areas of the blood flow regions across the plurality of frames to extract the blood flow regions as the blood flow group, and (iii) determine, for each of a plurality of extracted blood flow groups, whether or not each blood flow region of the blood flow group corresponds to the blood vessel of interest based on at least one of relative positions of the plurality of blood flow groups, area information of the blood flow region, direction information of blood flow, and an attribute of the blood flow group.