Simulation study on nonlinear ultrasound imaging using different realistic synthetic phantoms

Ultrasound imaging plays an important role in medical diagnosis which depends on two basic strategies either linear or nonlinear propagation of sound wave through tissues. Though linear ultrasound imaging has wide applications considering low cost, safe and portable facilities, it suffers poor SNR and resolutions. Harmonic imaging based on nonlinear response of tissue has significance as it is more accurately matched for biological tissue media if computational complexity is allowed. This study emblematizes an analysis of nonlinear ultrasound imaging for different realistic anatomical synthetic phantoms considering fetus, kidney, carotid artery, urinary bladder of human and phantom with closely located lesions. The nonlinear ultrasound simulation package CREANUIS is used to simulate the fundamental and harmonic images. Simulated images have been examined in terms of signal to noise ratio (SNR), contrast to noise ratio (CNR), root mean square error (RMSE), structural similarity (SSIM) and resolution. Simulation results show that the nonlinear imaging consideration is advantageous for closely located lesions and complex structured regions considering improved CNR, sharpness and resolution.