In vivo performance evaluation of short-lag spatial coherence and harmonic spatial coherence imaging in fetal ultrasound

Kakkad, Vaibhav; Dahl, Jeremy J.; Ellestad, Sarah; Trahey, Gregg E.

doi:10.1109/ultsym.2013.0155

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…First, contrast values highly depend on ROI selection. Previous work 9,11,12,25 appears to have selected ROIs in visually improved regions, and this selection aptly supports related conclusions that harmonic SLSC imaging improves contrast when compared to fundamental SLSC imaging. Second, harmonic imaging is known to improve visualization of deep structures, due to nonlinear propagation being underdeveloped in the near-field region of the ultrasound beam.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 72%

“…Second, harmonic imaging is known to improve visualization of deep structures, due to nonlinear propagation being underdeveloped in the near-field region of the ultrasound beam. 26 Because the distance between the transducer and a breast mass (e.g., 1-2 cm) is generally less than the distance to a fetus or the liver (e.g., 10-12 cm for fetal imaging), the positive effects of harmonic SLSC imaging compared to fundamental SLSC imaging seem to be more prominent in fetal 9,25 and liver 12 imaging than in breast imaging. However, there are also in vivo liver cases in which the contrast gains with harmonic SLSC imaging were marginal (i.e., 0.1 dB increase) or minimally worse (i.e., -2 dB decrease) when compared to matched fundamental SLSC images.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Theoretical basis and experimental validation of harmonic coherence-based ultrasound imaging for breast mass diagnosis

Kokumo¹,

Sharma

Myers

et al. 2023

Medical Imaging 2023: Physics of Medical Imaging

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Coherence-based ultrasound imaging has demonstrated potential to improve breast mass diagnosis by distinguishing solid from fluid-filled masses. Harmonic imaging, which is known to reduce acoustic clutter, has the potential to offer additional improvements. However, the lack of a theoretical basis to describe these improvements precludes clinical recommendations based on physics and engineering principles. This work is the first to develop a theoretical model of coherence-based ultrasound imaging to describe both solid vs. fluid mass distinction and the effects of harmonic short-lag spatial coherence (SLSC) imaging. The scattering function and the transmit ultrasound beam of the van Cittert-Zernike theorem applied to ultrasound imaging were redefined to generate the theoretical model for solid vs. fluid mass distinction and for harmonic imaging, respectively. The derived theory was used to compare fundamental and harmonic SLSC images for hypoechoic solid, hypoechoic fluid, hyperechoic, and point targets. Theoretical simulations showed improved resolution, mitigated dark-region artifacts around hyperechoic targets, and increased spatial coherence of fluid masses in harmonic SLSC images when compared to fundamental SLSC images. Experimental data from tissue-mimicking phantoms and in vivo breast ultrasound images agreed with theoretical results. In particular, when compared to fundamental SLSC imaging, harmonic SLSC imaging improved resolution by 0.19 ± 0.25 mm, mitigated dark region artifacts by 0.55 ± 0.54 mm, and increased the spatial coherence of fluid-filled masses, resulting in a 6.50 ± 4.28 dB decrease in contrast. Results will enable future clinical recommendations supporting the use of fundamental or harmonic SLSC imaging for analyses of fluid or solid masses, respectively. These contributions establish a theoretical foundation to combine fundamental and harmonic coherence-based imaging with harmonic B-mode imaging to improve the accuracy of breast mass diagnoses.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 72%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Theoretical basis and experimental validation of harmonic coherence-based ultrasound imaging for breast mass diagnosis

Kokumo¹,

Sharma

Myers

et al. 2023

Medical Imaging 2023: Physics of Medical Imaging

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“…The VCZ theorem supported ultrasound-based investigations by Mallart and Fink[4], Liu and Waag[5], and Bamber et al[6], and led to the development of short-lag spatial coherence (SLSC)[7] imaging. SLSC imaging has since demonstrated remarkable improvements over traditional ultrasound B-mode imaging when visualizing liver tissue[8], endocardial borders[9], fetal anatomical features[10], and point-like targets in the presence of noise[11]. A suite of traditional ultrasound transducer arrays (i.e., linear[7], curvilinear[8], phased[9], and 2D matrix[12], [13] arrays) were demonstrated to be compatible with SLSC imaging.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Robust Short-Lag Spatial Coherence Imaging

Nair

Tran

Bell

2018

IEEE Trans. Ultrason., Ferroelect., Freq. Contr.

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Short-lag spatial coherence (SLSC) imaging displays the spatial coherence between backscattered ultrasound echoes instead of their signal amplitudes and is more robust to noise and clutter artifacts when compared with traditional delay-and-sum (DAS) B-mode imaging. However, SLSC imaging does not consider the content of images formed with different lags, and thus does not exploit the differences in tissue texture at each short-lag value. Our proposed method improves SLSC imaging by weighting the addition of lag values (i.e., M-weighting) and by applying robust principal component analysis (RPCA) to search for a low-dimensional subspace for projecting coherence images created with different lag values. The RPCA-based projections are considered to be denoised versions of the originals that are then weighted and added across lags to yield a final robust SLSC (R-SLSC) image. Our approach was tested on simulation, phantom, and in vivo liver data. Relative to DAS B-mode images, the mean contrast, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) improvements with R-SLSC images are 21.22 dB, 2.54, and 2.36, respectively, when averaged over simulated, phantom, and in vivo data and over all lags considered, which corresponds to mean improvements of 96.4%, 121.2%, and 120.5%, respectively. When compared with SLSC images, the corresponding mean improvements with R-SLSC images were 7.38 dB, 1.52, and 1.30, respectively (i.e., mean improvements of 14.5%, 50.5%, and 43.2%, respectively). Results show great promise for smoothing out the tissue texture of SLSC images and enhancing anechoic or hypoechoic target visibility at higher lag values, which could be useful in clinical tasks such as breast cyst visualization, liver vessel tracking, and obese patient imaging.

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“…9 ), indicating that our conclusions are not limited to our specific ultrasound scanner. Third, given that nonlinear acoustic propagation is underdeveloped in the near-field region of the transducer [ 51 ], with additional consideration that the depth of a breast mass (e.g., 1–2 cm) is generally less than that of a fetus or liver, the positive effects of harmonic SLSC imaging compared to fundamental SLSC imaging seem to be more prominent in fetal [ 19 ], [ 52 ] and liver [ 25 ] imaging relative to breast imaging. However, the contrast gains with in vivo harmonic SLSC liver imaging were marginal (e.g., 0.1 dB increase from 8.9 to 9 dB) or worse (e.g., 2 dB mean decrease from 11.08 dB to 9.18), when compared to corresponding fundamental SLSC images [ 21 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial Coherence Approaches to Distinguish Suspicious Mass Contents in Fundamental and Harmonic Breast Ultrasound Images

Sharma,

Oluyemi,

Myers

et al. 2024

IEEE Trans. Ultrason., Ferroelect., Freq. Contr.

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When compared to fundamental B-mode imaging, coherence-based beamforming, and harmonic imaging are independently known to reduce acoustic clutter, distinguish solid from fluid content in indeterminate breast masses, and thereby reduce unnecessary biopsies during a breast cancer diagnosis. However, a systematic investigation of independent and combined coherence beamforming and harmonic imaging approaches is necessary for the clinical deployment of the most optimal approach. Therefore, we compare the performance of fundamental and harmonic images created with short-lag spatial coherence (SLSC), M-weighted SLSC (M-SLSC), SLSC combined with robust principal component analysis with no M-weighting (r-SLSC), and r-SLSC with M-weighting (R-SLSC), relative to traditional fundamental and harmonic B-mode images, when distinguishing solid from fluid breast masses. Raw channel data acquired from 40 total breast masses (28 solid, 7 fluid, 5 mixed) were beamformed and analyzed. The contrast of fluid masses was better with fundamental rather than harmonic coherence imaging, due to the lower spatial coherence within the fluid masses in the fundamental coherence images. Relative to SLSC imaging, M-SLSC, r-SLSC, and R-SLSC imaging provided similar contrast across multiple masses (with the exception of clinically challenging complicated cysts) and minimized the range of generalized contrast-to-noise ratios (gCNRs) of fluid masses, yet required additional computational resources. Among the eight coherence imaging modes compared, fundamental SLSC imaging best identified fluid versus solid breast mass contents, outperforming fundamental and harmonic B-mode imaging. With fundamental SLSC images, the specificity and sensitivity to identify fluid masses using the reader-independent metrics of contrast difference, mean lag one coherence (LOC), and gCNR were 0.86 and 1, 1 and 0.89, and 1 and 1, respectively. Results demonstrate that fundamental SLSC imaging and gCNR (or LOC if no coherence image or background region of interest is introduced) have the greatest potential to impact clinical decisions and improve the diagnostic certainty of breast mass contents. These observations are additionally anticipated to extend to masses in other organs.

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In vivo performance evaluation of short-lag spatial coherence and harmonic spatial coherence imaging in fetal ultrasound

Cited by 5 publications

References 12 publications

Theoretical basis and experimental validation of harmonic coherence-based ultrasound imaging for breast mass diagnosis

Theoretical basis and experimental validation of harmonic coherence-based ultrasound imaging for breast mass diagnosis

Robust Short-Lag Spatial Coherence Imaging

Spatial Coherence Approaches to Distinguish Suspicious Mass Contents in Fundamental and Harmonic Breast Ultrasound Images

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