Estimation of acoustic impedance from multiple ultrasound images with application to spatial compounding

Reflection of sound waves, due to acoustic impedance mismatch at the interface of two media, is the principal physical property which allows visualization with ultrasound. In this paper, we investigate reconstruction of the acoustic impedance from ultrasound images for the first time. Similar to spatial compounding, we combine multiple images to improve the estimation. We use phase information to determine regions of high reflection from an ultrasound image. We model the physical imaging process with an emphasis on the reflection of sound waves. The model is used in computing the acoustic impedance (up to a scale) from areas of high reflectivity. The acoustic impedance image can either be directly visualized or be used in simulation of ultrasound images from an arbitrary point of view. The experiments performed on in-vitro and in-vivo data show promising results.

[1]  Michael Felsberg,et al.  The monogenic signal , 2001, IEEE Trans. Signal Process..

[2]  Nassir Navab,et al.  Simulation and Fully Automatic Multimodal Registration of Medical Ultrasound , 2007, MICCAI.

[3]  Purang Abolmaesumi,et al.  Tissue Characterization Using Fractal Dimension of High Frequency Ultrasound RF Time Series , 2007, MICCAI.

[4]  Nassir Navab,et al.  Three-Dimensional Ultrasound Mosaicing , 2007, MICCAI.

[5]  Roy W. Martin,et al.  Three-dimensional spatial compounding of ultrasound scans with incidence angle weighting , 1999, 1999 IEEE Ultrasonics Symposium. Proceedings. International Symposium (Cat. No.99CH37027).

[6]  Robert Rohling,et al.  Adaptive spatial compounding for improving ultrasound images of the epidural space on human subjects , 2008, SPIE Medical Imaging.

[7]  Robert Rohling,et al.  Adaptive spatial compounding for improving ultrasound images of the epidural space , 2007, SPIE Medical Imaging.

[8]  S. Huber,et al.  Real-time spatial compound imaging in breast ultrasound. , 2002, Ultrasound in medicine & biology.

[9]  P. Peetrons.  Ultrasound of muscles , 2001, European Radiology.

[10]  Jocelyn D Chertoff.  Imaging of the abdomen. , 2009, Seminars in roentgenology.

[11]  S. K. Jespersen,et al.  In vitro spatial compound scanning for improved visualization of atherosclerosis. , 2000, Ultrasound in medicine & biology.

[12]  J. Alison Noble,et al.  Registration of Multiview Real-Time 3-D Echocardiographic Sequences , 2007, IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging.

[13]  Nassir Navab,et al.  Real-Time Simulation of Medical Ultrasound from CT Images , 2008, MICCAI.

[14]  Martin D. Fox,et al.  Speckle Reduction and Structure Enhancement by Multichannel Median Boosted Anisotropic Diffusion , 2004, EURASIP J. Adv. Signal Process..

[15]  M E Anderson,et al.  The detection of breast microcalcifications with medical ultrasound. , 1997, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[16]  Jens E. Wilhjelm,et al.  Visual and quantitative evaluation of selected image combination schemes in ultrasound spatial compound scanning , 2004, IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging.

[17]  B. Tutschek,et al.  Advantages of and applications for extended field-of-view ultrasound in obstetrics , 2003, Archives of Gynecology and Obstetrics.

[18]  T. Case,et al.  Ultrasound physics and instrumentation. , 1998, The Surgical clinics of North America.

[19]  Richard W Prager,et al.  Subsample interpolation strategies for sensorless freehand 3D ultrasound. , 2006, Ultrasound in medicine & biology.

[20]  D. L. Hykes,et al.  Ultrasound Physics and Instrumentation , 1985 .

[21]  Zvi Friedman,et al.  A new method of spatial compounding imaging. , 2003, Ultrasonics.

[22]  J. Alison Noble,et al.  Adaptive Multiscale Ultrasound Compounding Using Phase Information , 2005, MICCAI.

[23]  Marcos Martín-Fernández,et al.  Tissue Identification in Ultrasound Images using Rayleigh Local Parameter Estimation , 2007, 2007 IEEE 7th International Symposium on BioInformatics and BioEngineering.

[24]  Kyoung Ho Lee,et al.  Extended field-of-view sonography: advantages in abdominal applications. , 2003, Journal of ultrasound in medicine : official journal of the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine.

[25]  J. Alison Noble,et al.  Phase-Based Registration of Multi-view Real-Time Three-Dimensional Echocardiographic Sequences , 2006, MICCAI.