ULTRASOUND ATTENUATION IMAGING

Radovan Jiřík - Torfinn Taxt - Jiří Jan

   This paper studies imaging of tissue-specific ultrasound attenuation. A new method is presented where the imaged parameter is the mean attenuation coefficient between the probe and the given pixel position. The method is based on the least-mean-squares approximation of short segments of A-scan radiofrequency signals using a physical model. The parametric image shows some of the tissue structures. It can also be used as a preliminary step in estimation of the ultrasound attenuation coefficient. Furthermore, the mean attenuation coefficient is a parameter influencing the space-variant ultrasonographic point spread function, so it can be used to improve the spatial resolution of ultrasound image through deconvolution. Testing of the method on images of a tissue-mimicking phantom, and on clinical images of liver and thigh showed relatively good agreement of the estimated attenuation coefficients with the known reference values.

Keywords: ultrasound imaging, parametric imaging, estimation of attenuation coefficient, deconvolution of ultrasonographic images

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