Analysis of ultrasound image texture via generalized rician statistics

Tissue signatures are obtained from the first- and second-order statistics of ultrasonic B-scan texture. Laboratory measurements and early clinical results show that the image may be segmented to discriminate between different normal tissues and to detect abnormal conditions based on a multidimensional feature space. These features describe the intrinsic backscatter properties of the tissues imaged and may be used as the basis of an automatic tissue characterization algorithm.