Survey of image segmentation algorithms on ultrasound medical images

Visual information plays an important role in almost all areas our life. Nowadays, much of this information is represented and processed digitally. Image processing is ubiquitous, with the applications ranging from Television (TV) to Computed Tomography, from Photography to Printing, from Robotics to remote sensing and medical applications. Ultrasound is one of the techniques for medical application. It is used for clinical usage. The most important technologies include transducers, beam forming, contrast agents, pulse compression techniques for measuring blood flow and three-dimensional imaging. Ultrasound imaging provides valuable imaging modality to provide the following functionalities as ease of use, low cost, safe, non invasive and fast examination. Ultrasound imaging system provides effective way for examining the various tissues of human body including thyroid, breast, abdominal organs, heart, muscles, tendons, arteries and veins. This paper aims to present on current segmentation algorithms used for medical images. Each and every type of algorithm is discussed as well as their main application fields identified. Experiments that apply the algorithms to segment ultrasound images are presented to further evaluate their behaviour.