US 12,137,978 B2
Blood flow measurement apparatus, method of controlling the same, and recording medium
Kana Minamide, Tokyo (JP); and Masahiro Akiba, Wako (JP)
Assigned to TOPCON CORPORATION, Tokyo (JP)
Appl. No. 17/417,760
Filed by Topcon Corporation, Tokyo (JP)
PCT Filed Dec. 25, 2019, PCT No. PCT/JP2019/050980
§ 371(c)(1), (2) Date Jun. 24, 2021,
PCT Pub. No. WO2020/138224, PCT Pub. Date Jul. 2, 2020.
Claims priority of application No. 2018-246992 (JP), filed on Dec. 28, 2018.
Prior Publication US 2022/0007935 A1, Jan. 13, 2022
Int. Cl. A61B 3/12 (2006.01); A61B 3/10 (2006.01); A61B 5/00 (2006.01)
CPC A61B 3/1233 (2013.01) [A61B 3/102 (2013.01); A61B 5/489 (2013.01); A61B 5/4893 (2013.01)] 9 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A blood flow measurement apparatus comprising:
a scanning optical system including an optical coherence tomography (OCT) scanner and configured to apply optical coherence tomography scanning to a fundus of a subject's eye;
a front image acquiring sensor or memory configured to acquire a front image of the fundus;
processing circuitry configured to determine a region of interest that intersects a blood vessel by analyzing the front image based on a condition set in advance;
the processing circuitry further configured to control the scanning optical system to apply a repetitive OCT scan to the region of interest; and
the processing circuitry further configured to acquire blood flow information based on data collected by the repetitive OCT scan,
wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to identify a blood vessel of interest by analyzing the front image based on a blood vessel identification condition set in advance, and the processing circuitry determines a region of interest that intersects the blood vessel of interest identified,
the front image includes an optic nerve head image,
the processing circuitry identifies, as the blood vessel of interest, a thickest blood vessel for each of two or more regions located in mutually different directions with respect to the optic nerve head image, the thickest blood vessel having a largest diameter in a corresponding region, and
the processing circuitry determines the region of interest that intersects any of two or more thickest blood vessels identified for the two or more regions.