| abstract |
Provided is a blood-vessel ultrasonographing method, which can position an ultrasonic probe easily in a sufficient positioning precision. The method comprises an around-X axis positioning step of causing an multi-axis drive device (26) to position ultrasonic probes (24, 102 and 112) so as to equalize the distances from individual ultrasonic array probes to the center of a blood vessel (20), and an X-axis direction positioning step and an around-Z axis positioning step of causing the multi-axis drive device (26) to position the ultrasonic probes (24, 102 and 112) so as to position the image of the blood vessel (20) at the widthwise central portions of a first short-axis image display region (G1) and a second short-axis image display region (G2). These positioning operations can be made by employing either the longitudinal positions of the ultrasonic array probes relative to the blood vessel (20) or the distances of the ultrasonic array probes to the blood vessel. It is, therefore, possible to position the ultrasonic probes (24, 102 and 112) on the blood vessel (20) of a living body (14) simply and easily but highly precisely. |