Local tissue attenuation images based on pulsed-echo ultrasound scans

Abstract

This paper presents a novel technique for creating images of local tissue attenuation. The original conventional B scan is traversed, one pixel at a time. In the vicinity of each pixel, a uniform area is determined and average attenuation is computed utilizing an extended modified Prony approach. B scans of tissue mimicking phantoms and in vivo human liver scans are used in order to illustrate the performance of the proposed algorithm. The results show good agreement between estimated and known attenuation values. Clinical studies demonstrate significant potential of the proposed technique, in particular for diagnosis of diffuse liver disease.