Estimation of the Scatterer Distribution for Quantitative Diagnosis using Ultrasonic Image

在超声成像系统获得的肝脏b型图像中，斑点模式随着疾病（如肝硬化）的进展而变化。人类的肝脏是由被称为肝小叶的小六边形结构组成的。我们提出了一种考虑肝小叶结构的肝组织散射体分布变化的建模技术，以获得连续期肝硬化肝脏图像。所提出的建模技术对于分析肝硬化进展过程中生物组织特征变化与b型图像变化之间的关系是有效的。然后，我们给出了肝脏回波包络的统计特征，并利用恒虚警率（CFAR）处理技术从正常和肝硬化肝脏图像中提取散射体分布信息。我们分析了提取的散点分布与肝硬化分期的关系。处理信号的幅度大于阈值的区域占整个处理图像区域的比例与肝硬化的分期定量相关。结果表明，该方法对肝硬化的定量诊断是有效的。

In the B-mode image of the liver obtained by an ultrasonic imaging system, the speckled pattern changes with the progression of the disease such as liver cirrhosis. The human liver is composed of small hexagonal structures known as the liver lobules. We propose a modeling technique for the change of the scatterer distribution on liver tissue considering the liver lobule structure to obtain cirrhotic liver images of the continuous stage. The proposed modeling technique is valid for analyzing the relationship between the change of characteristics of biological tissue and change of B-mode image on the progression of liver cirrhosis. Then, we present the statistical characteristics of the echo envelope of the liver, and the technique to extract information of the scatterer distribution from the normal and cirrhotic liver images using constant false alarm rate (CFAR) processing. We analyze the relationship between the extracted scatterer distribution and the stage of liver cirrhosis. The ratio of the area in which the amplitude of the processing signal is more than the threshold to the entire processed image area is related quantitatively to the stage of liver cirrhosis. It is found that the proposed technique is valid for the quantitative diagnosis of liver cirrhosis.