Image decomposition based ultrasound image segmentation by using fuzzy clustering

Ultrasound image segmentation is challenging due to the interference from speckle noise and fuzziness of boundaries. In this paper, we propose a segmentation scheme using fuzzy c-means (FCM) clustering incorporating spatial information based on image decomposition. First, an ultrasound image is decomposed into a sum of two functions, u+v, where u denotes the image intensity while v refers to the texture. And then, a spatial FCM clustering method is applied on the image intensity component for segmentation. In the experiments with simulated and clinical ultrasound images, the proposed method can get more accurate results than other preprocessing or segmentation methods.