Conference paper

Jiřík R., Stotzka R., Taxt T.

Proc. SPIE International Symposium on Medical Imaging

San Diego, USA

2005

305-314

Ing. Radovan Jiřík, PhD. (FEKT VUT Brno)

jirik_ultrasonic_attenuation [file]

The paper presents a new ultrasonic attenuation imaging method which might be used as a new imaging modality,
targeted at breast cancer diagnostics. Two approaches based on ultrasonic imaging are combined together,
namely the estimation of ultrasound attenuation coeffcients from pulse-echo B-mode imaging data and an
ultrasound computer tomography imaging technique. A recently published method for estimation of the ultrasound
attenuation coeffcient using the log-spectrum analysis is applied to radiofrequency signals acquired by an
ultrasound computer tomography system to estimate images of the attenuation coeffcients.
The examined volume (e.g. female breast) is enclosed by several thousand ultrasound transducers. Radiofrequency
signals from all transducers using all sending positions are recorded. Compared to the known ultrasound
attenuation tomography methods, not only the directly transmitted signal, but also the re
ected and scattered
signals are processed here, i.e. substantially more information is used.
The method is presented in its initial stage. The applied algorithm is derived using simplifying assumptions
which will be relaxed in further research. However, even at this stage the resulting attenuation image is of higher
quality than the standard attenuation imaging methods applied to the same data set.