Patent ID: 9028421
Filing Date: 2015-05-12
Classification: A61B

Abstract:
1. A blood flow image diagnosis device comprising: a laser beam irradiation system that irradiates, with a laser beam, an observation region of a body tissue having a blood cell; a light receiving system having a light receiver, including a plurality of pixels, that detects reflected light from the observation region of the body tissue; an image capture section that continuously captures, based on a signal from the light receiver, a plurality of images for a specified time including one or more cardiac beats; an image storage section that stores the plurality of images; an arithmetic section that calculates a blood flow rate within the body tissue from a time variation of an output signal of each pixel corresponding to the plurality of the stored images; and a display section that displays a two-dimensional distribution of the calculated blood flow rate as a blood flow map; wherein the arithmetic section separates, based on a plurality of blood flow maps covering the specified time including one or more cardiac beats, a blood flow of a surface layer blood vessel observed in a surface layer in the observation region of the body tissue from a background blood flow of a peripheral background region, the display section distinguishably displays a first blood flow map of the surface layer blood vessel and a second blood flow map of the background blood flow, the arithmetic section calculates and compares information on a blood flow including blood flow value, blood flow waveform, or blood vessel diameter in said first and second blood flow maps, and the display section displays the calculated information, wherein the arithmetic section: calculates an amount of position-disparity, generated by movement of a measuring object, regarding said plurality of blood flow maps, obtains an average blood flow map by compensating the plurality of the blood flow maps with the amount of position-disparity and superimposing the compensated plurality of the blood flow map, obtains a mask image based on the average blood flow map by distinguishing a range with higher blood flow from a range with lower blood flow based on a threshold and excluding isolated points on the average blood flow map, superimposes the mask image on each of the plurality of blood flow maps, independently extracts the blood flow on the surface layer blood vessel and the background blood flow in a first region of the plurality of blood flow maps, respectively, and obtains information on the blood flow of the surface layer blood vessel and the background blood flow.