Ultrasonic measurement apparatus

Claim 1

An ultrasonic measurement apparatus comprising a main measuring instrument means for applying transmit signals, a first ultrasonic probe means responsive to said main measuring instrument means for transmitting and receiving ultrasonic waves to and from a region of interest in a living body and supplying signals representative thereof to said main measuring instrument means, a second ultrasonic probe means provided in the vicinity of said first probe and adapted to detect the movement of a reflecting body local to said region of interest in the interior of said living body, and moving due to cardiac motion an M-mode imaging apparatus adapted to apply a transmitting wave signal repeatedly with a time of repetition to said second ultrasonic probe means, and to display a reception signal from said second ultrasonic probe means on a two-dimensional image as the detected movement, one axis thereof being representative of a distance between said second ultrasonic probe means and the region of interest and the other axis thereof being the lapse of said time of repetition, means for detecting a signal representative of periodic cardiac motion in said living body and for generating a pulse signal which is synchronous therewith, synthesizer means for generating a set waveform output synchronously with said pulse signal, and actuator means responsive to said output from said synthesizer means for periodically moving said first and second ultrasonic probe means so as to maintain variations in relative distance between said first and second ultrasonic probe means and said region of interest and reflecting body local thereto within a predetermined range of distance thereby to compensate for the effect of motion of said region of interest due to cardiac motion on said main measurement instrument means.