Attenuation measurements for ultrasonic breast imaging: Comparisons of three approaches

Various approaches have been proposed to identify malignant breast tumors using ultrasound. In this study, we implement three different approaches and one combined method. Performance of these approaches is investigated based on simulation data. The three approaches are: video signal analysis (VSA), spectral estimation using periodogram (PER), and minimum side difference (MSD). Note that all approaches can readily be implemented using current B-mode imaging setup. First, VSA is to observe the gray-level gradient on a B-mode image. Second, PER is implemented by estimating the center frequency from the periodogram of the beam form data. Third, MSD is calculated using gray-level values of areas posterior to the region of interest, and left and right posterior to the ROI. In VSA, an effective frequency is required and typically the nominal center frequency is used. However, with a broadband pulse an accurate estimate of the effective frequency is needed to avoid large errors in VSA. In this study, we propose a modified VSA method in which PER is used to estimate the effective frequency. It is shown that accuracy of the VSA method can be improved by the proposed method particularly when the transmit bandwidth is large.