Numerical and experimental simulations to quantify the potential and limitations of various ultrasonic medical imaging algorithms

The authors discuss the fundamental problems of ultrasonic medical imaging and apply inverse scattering theory to overcome them. Numerous computer simulations demonstrate the practicability of several well known and various improved algorithms. It is concluded that both B-scan and ultrasound adapted computer tomography (US-CT) are not suitable for quantitative medical imaging. The linearized inverse scattering solutions, angular diversity (AD) and frequency diversity (FD), are much more quantitative. The FD method is the more powerful one but its advantage is reduced by a limited aperture.<<ETX>>