ULTRASOUND IMAGE PROCESSING

摘要

Method, system, and computer program product are provided for processing an ultrasound image, in particular an image of inhomogeneous tissue. The method includes: segmenting tissue in a received ultrasound image; creating a mask of pixels centred on a pixel in a tissue area, wherein the pixels in the mask are within a given decibel range of the central pixel and within a segmentation boundary; and assigning an attenuation to the central pixel by estimating the attenuation of the pixels in the mask. The received ultrasound image may be a raw image the method may include creating an image of an attenuation mapping of attenuations for each pixel in a tissue area. Alternatively, the received ultrasound image may be a time gain compensated image the method may include determining areas of relatively high or low attenuation.