A versatile technique for visual enhancement of medical ultrasound images

doi:10.1016/j.dsp.2006.12.001

Digital Signal Processing

Volume 17, Issue 3, May 2007, Pages 542-560

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dsp.2006.12.001 Get rights and content

Abstract

The paper presents a versatile wavelet domain despeckling technique to visually enhance the medical ultrasound (US) images for improving the clinical diagnosis. The method uses the two-sided generalized Nakagami distribution (GND) for modeling the speckle wavelet coefficients and the signal wavelet coefficients are approximated using the generalized Gaussian distribution (GGD). Combining these statistical priors with the Bayesian maximum a posteriori (MAP) criterion, the thresholding/shrinkage estimators are derived for processing the wavelet coefficients of detail subbands. Consequently, two blind speckle suppressors named as GNDThresh and GNDShrink have been implemented and evaluated on both the artificial speckle simulated images and real US images. The experimental results demonstrate the superiority of the suggested technique both quantitatively and qualitatively as compared to other competitive schemes reported in the image denoising literature, e.g., the proposed method yields a gain of more than 0.36 dB over the best state-of-the-art despeckling method (GenLik), 0.93 dB over SRAD filter, 2.35 dB over Lee filter, and 1.34 dB over Kuan filter in terms of signal-to-noise ratio, when tested on the realistic US images. The visual comparison of despeckled US images and the higher values of quality metrics (coefficient of correlation, edge preservation index, quality index, and structural similarity index) indicate that the new method suppresses the speckle noise well while preserving the texture and organ surfaces. Further, the proposed method will be evaluated on other class of images as well as by employing multiple observer evaluation.

Section snippets

S. Gupta received the B.Tech. degree from TITS, Bhiwani, in 1992, and the M.E. degree from TIET, Patiala, Punjab, in 1998, both in computer science and engineering. She has been teaching and involved in research activities since 1992. Recently, she has submitted her dissertation for Ph.D. degree at PTU, Jalandhar. Her research interests include wavelet based image processing, network security, image compression and denoising.

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L. Kaur received the M.E. degree from TIET, Patiala, Punjab, in 2000, in computer science and engineering. She has been in the teaching profession since 1992. Recently, she has submitted her dissertation for Ph.D. degree at PTU, Jalandhar. Her research interests include image compression and denoising and wavelets application in image processing.

R.C. Chauhan received the B.Sc. (Eng.) degree from BHU, and the M.Tech. and Ph.D. degrees from IIT, Roorkee, all in electrical engineering. He is involved in teaching and research activities for the last 21 years. Presently, he is working as Director cum advisor, City group of institutions, Jalandhar, Punjab. He also worked in the power industry as chief engineer for 11 years. His research interests include signal processing and power engineering.

S.C. Saxena received the B.E. degree from Allahabad University in 1970, and the M.E. and Ph.D. degrees from IIT, Roorkee, all in electrical engineering. He has been teaching and involved in research activities since 1973. Presently, he is working as Director, IIT, Roorkee, Uttranchal. He has published over 150 research papers and guided a number of research scholars for their Ph.D. theses. His research interests include biomedical engineering, measurement and instrumentation, and signal processing.

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A versatile technique for visual enhancement of medical ultrasound images

Abstract

Section snippets

Comp. Graphics Image Process.

Quantitative quality evaluation in ultrasound imaging in carotid artery

Med. Biol. Eng. Comput.

Comparative evaluation of despeckle filtering in ultrasound imaging of carotid artery

IEEE Trans. Ultrason. Ferroelectr. Frequency Control

Speckle reducing anisotropic diffusion

IEEE Trans. Image Process.

Speckle in ultrasonic imaging

Ultrasonic

Statistical properties of radio-frequency and envelop detected signals with application to medical ultrasound

J. Opt. Soc. Am.

Artefacts in ultrasound imaging

J. Ultrasound Med.

A wavelet based statistical approach for speckle reduction in medical ultrasound images

IEE J. Int. Fed. Med. Biol. Eng.

Speckle reduction and contrast enhancement of echocardiograms via multiscale nonlinear processing

IEEE Trans. Med. Imag.

Homomorphic wavelet thresholding technique for denoising medical ultrasound images

Taylor & Francis Int. J. Med. Eng. Technol.

Despeckling of medical ultrasound images

IEEE Trans. Ultrason. Ferroelectr. Frequency Control

A versatile wavelet domain noise filtration technique for medical imaging

IEEE Trans. Med. Imag.

A robust multi-scale non-homomorphic approach to speckle reduction in medical ultrasound images

IEE J. Int. Fed. Med. Biol. Eng.

Multiscale MAP filtering of SAR images

IEEE Trans. Image Process.

Despeckling SAR images using a low-complexity wavelet denoising process

Proc. IEEE

Non-linear multiscale wavelet diffusion for speckle suppression and edge enhancement in ultrasound images

IEEE Trans. Med. Imag.

Ultrasonic tissue characterization using a generalized Nakagami model

IEEE Trans. Ultrason. Ferroelectr. Frequency Control