Feasibility Study of Improved Patch Group Prior Based Denoising (PGPD) Technique with Medical Ultrasound Imaging System

The purpose of this study was to quantitatively evaluate image quality using intensity profile, coefficient of variation (COV), and peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR) with respect to noise reduction techniques in the ultrasound images. For that purpose, we compared with the median filter, Rudin-Osher-Fatemi (ROF), Anscombe and proposed patch group prior based denoising (PGPD) techniques. To evaluate image quality, the Shepp-Logan phantom and the ultrasound image were acquired using simulation and experiment, respectively. According to the results, the difference of intensity profile using PGPD technique is lowest compared with original Shepp-Logan phantom. In simulation, the measured COV was 0.249, 0.198, 0.198, 0.177, and 0.080 using noisy, median, ROF, Anscombe and PGPD technique, respectively. Also, in experimental image, the measured COV was 0.245, 0.230, 0.231, 0.242 and 0.187 using noisy, median, ROF, Anscombe and PGPD technique, respectively. Especially, when we used PGPD technique, the PSNR has highest value in both simulation and experiment. In this study, we performed simulation and experiment study to compare various denoising techniques in the ultrasound image. We can expect the PGPD technique to improve in medical diagnosis with excellent noise reduction.