Iterative reconstruction of the ultrasound attenuation coefficient from the backscattered radio-frequency signal

Accurate estimation of the local acoustic attenuation based on the backscatter signal has several applications, e.g. ultrasound tissue characterization. Most of the existing techniques determine the attenuation coefficient of the tissue directly from the spectrum of the backscattered signal. In these approaches other effects, such as diffraction, that may influence the attenuation estimation should be corrected for. This correction may be impractical in vivo. In the present study the simulation of ultrasound wave propagation was used for the estimation of the attenuation characteristics. Indeed, the local attenuation coefficient was estimated by iteratively solving the forward wave propagation problem and matching the synthetic backscattered signal to the measured one. The proposed methodology was experimentally validated using tissue-mimicking phantoms with different attenuation characteristics showing promising results.