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Mohamed Moubark A, Nie L, Mohd Zaman MH, Islam MT, Zulkifley MA, Baharuddin MH, Alomari Z, Freear S. Enhancement of Ultrasound B-Mode Image Quality Using Nonlinear Filtered-Multiply-and-Sum Compounding for Improved Carotid Artery Segmentation. Diagnostics (Basel) 2023; 13:diagnostics13061161. [PMID: 36980469 PMCID: PMC10047674 DOI: 10.3390/diagnostics13061161] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/22/2023] [Revised: 03/12/2023] [Accepted: 03/16/2023] [Indexed: 03/30/2023] Open
Abstract
In ultrasound B-mode imaging, the axial resolution (AR) is commonly determined by the duration or bandwidth of an excitation signal. A shorter-duration pulse will produce better resolution compared to a longer one but with compromised penetration depth. Instead of relying on the pulse duration or bandwidth to improve the AR, an alternative method termed filtered multiply and sum (FMAS) has been introduced in our previous work. For spatial-compounding, FMAS uses the autocorrelation technique as used in filtered-delay multiply and sum (FDMAS), instead of conventional averaging. FMAS enables a higher frame rate and less computational complexity than conventional plane-wave compound imaging beamformed with delay and sum (DAS) and FDMAS. Moreover, it can provide an improved contrast ratio and AR. In previous work, no explanation was given on how FMAS was able to improve the AR. Thus, in this work, we discuss in detail the theory behind the proposed FMAS algorithm and how it is able to improve the spatial resolution mainly in the axial direction. Simulations, experimental phantom measurements and in vivo studies were conducted to benchmark the performance of the proposed method. We also demonstrate how the suggested new algorithm may be used in a practical biomedical imaging application. The balloon snake active contour segmentation technique was applied to the ultrasound B-mode image of a common carotid artery produced with FMAS. The suggested method is capable of reducing the number of iterations for the snake to settle on the region-of-interest contour, accelerating the segmentation process.
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Affiliation(s)
- Asraf Mohamed Moubark
- Department of Electrical, Electronic and Systems Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi 43600, Selangor, Malaysia
| | - Luzhen Nie
- School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK
| | - Mohd Hairi Mohd Zaman
- Department of Electrical, Electronic and Systems Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi 43600, Selangor, Malaysia
| | - Mohammad Tariqul Islam
- Department of Electrical, Electronic and Systems Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi 43600, Selangor, Malaysia
| | - Mohd Asyraf Zulkifley
- Department of Electrical, Electronic and Systems Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi 43600, Selangor, Malaysia
| | - Mohd Hafiz Baharuddin
- Department of Electrical, Electronic and Systems Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi 43600, Selangor, Malaysia
| | - Zainab Alomari
- Department of Communications Engineering, Electronics Engineering College, Ninevah University, Mosul 41002, Iraq
| | - Steven Freear
- School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK
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Camacho J, Svilainis L, Álvarez-Arenas TG. Ultrasonic Imaging and Sensors. SENSORS (BASEL, SWITZERLAND) 2022; 22:7911. [PMID: 36298262 PMCID: PMC9611746 DOI: 10.3390/s22207911] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/22/2022] [Accepted: 09/30/2022] [Indexed: 06/16/2023]
Abstract
Ultrasound imaging is a wide research field, covering areas from wave propagation physics, sensors and front-end electronics to image reconstruction algorithms and software [...].
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Affiliation(s)
- Jorge Camacho
- Instituto de Tecnologías Físicas y de la Información (ITEFI), Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), 28006 Madrid, Spain
| | - Linas Svilainis
- Depertment of Electronics Engineering, Kaunas University of Technology, 44249 Kaunas, Lithuania
| | - Tomás Gómez Álvarez-Arenas
- Instituto de Tecnologías Físicas y de la Información (ITEFI), Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), 28006 Madrid, Spain
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High-resolution and high-contrast ultrafast ultrasound imaging using coherent plane wave adaptive compounding. Biomed Signal Process Control 2022. [DOI: 10.1016/j.bspc.2021.103446] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
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Yan X, Qi Y, Wang Y, Wang Y. Regional-Lag Signed Delay Multiply and Sum Beamforming in Ultrafast Ultrasound Imaging. IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ULTRASONICS, FERROELECTRICS, AND FREQUENCY CONTROL 2022; 69:580-591. [PMID: 34767507 DOI: 10.1109/tuffc.2021.3127878] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/13/2023]
Abstract
Ultrafast ultrasound imaging provides very high frame rates but provides poor imaging quality due to unfocused beams. The delay multiply and sum (DMAS) beamformer has been used to improve ultrafast ultrasound imaging contrast but is always accompanied by oversuppression, which produces low-quality speckle images and degrades the contrast performance. A smaller maximum lag in the signed DMAS (sDMAS) contributes better speckle preservation but lower resolution for hyperechoic scatters. To overcome this tradeoff, a regional-lag signed delay multiply and sum (rsDMAS) beamformer is proposed in this article. Innovatively, a region discrimination tool realized by the generalized coherence factor (GCF) is used to limit the maximum lag for spatial coherence estimation. Subaperture coherence smoothing estimates the short-lag coherence instead of multiplication in pairs, thereby reducing calculation complexity and smoothing the speckle texture. Normalization and sign correction are also introduced to achieve better beamforming output. The simulated, phantom, and in vivo data are adopted to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed beamformer. Numerical results show that the proposed method achieves improvements of the contrast ratio (CR) by 9%, contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) by 41%, speckle signal-to-noise ratio (sSNR) by 41%, and generalized contrast-to-noise ratio (gCNR) by 0.0004 compared with DMAS (in simulation). Resolution experiments show that the proposed method obtains a loss of 0.07 mm in the full width at half maximum (FWHM) and the same separability of close point scatters as DMAS. These findings indicate that the proposed method achieves higher contrast performance at less obvious sacrifice of the lateral resolution than DMAS.
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