Abstract
This paper describes an ultrasonic intestine thickness determination system for low anterior resection. At the operation of rectum cancer with a circular stapler, the intestine is pulled by the circular stapler. When the thickness becomes too thin, the corresponding cells necrotize. To solve this problem, it is necessary to measure the change of the thickness of the intestine. We propose a thickness determination method of the intestine with the ultrasonic probe of 15MHz. In our method, we determine the surface point by calculating the correlation coefficient between the surface echo and acquisition waveform. Next, we determine the bottom point by calculating three fuzzy degrees: amplitude of the bottom echo, correlation coefficient between the surface and bottom echo, and interval distance between the surface and bottom echo. Finally, we calculate the thickness between the surface and bottom points. As the result, we could measure the thickness within an error rate of 5.09%.
