Patent ID: 7448997

Claim:
An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus comprising: an ultrasonic probe; a number-of-frames defining device for defining a number of frames f; a transmitting/receiving device for driving said ultrasonic probe to conduct P ultrasonic pulse transmissions in one direction and receive echoes to acquire a first acoustic line signal, wherein P is at least equal to two; a transmission direction control device for controlling the transmission direction in an intra-frame mode in which the transmission direction is controlled to interleave at least one ultrasonic pulse transmission for acquiring a second acoustic line signal that belongs to the frame to which said first acoustic line signal belongs between the ultrasonic pulse transmissions in said one direction, or in an inter-frame mode in which the transmission direction is controlled to interleave at least one ultrasonic pulse transmission for acquiring a third acoustic line signal that belongs to a frame different from that to which said first acoustic line signal belongs between the ultrasonic pulse transmissions in said one direction; and an interleave mode selecting device for an operator to select between said intra-frame mode and inter-frame mode.