Segmentation of Ultrasound Images based on Scatterer Density using U-Net

Robust Scatterer Number Density Segmentation of Ultrasound Images

Quantitative ultrasound (QUS) aims to reveal information about the tissue microstructure using backscattered echo signals from clinical scanners. Among different QUS parameters, scatterer number density is an important property that can affect the estimation of other QUS parameters. Scatterer number density can be classified into high or low scatterer densities. If there are more than ten scatterers inside the resolution cell, the envelope data are considered as fully developed speckle (FDS) and, otherwise, as underdeveloped speckle (UDS). In conventional methods, the envelope data are divided into small overlapping windows (a strategy here we refer to as patching), and statistical parameters, such as SNR and skewness, are employed to classify each patch of envelope data. However, these parameters are system-dependent, meaning that their distribution can change by the imaging settings and patch size. Therefore, reference phantoms that have known scatterer number density are imaged with the same imaging settings to mitigate system dependency. In this article, we aim to segment regions of ultrasound data without any patching. A large dataset is generated, which has different shapes of scatterer number density and mean scatterer amplitude using a fast simulation method. We employ a convolutional neural network (CNN) for the segmentation task and investigate the effect of domain shift when the network is tested on different datasets with different imaging settings. Nakagami parametric image is employed for multitask learning to improve performance. Furthermore, inspired by the reference phantom methods in QUS, a domain adaptation stage is proposed, which requires only two frames of data from FDS and UDS classes. We evaluate our method for different experimental phantoms and in vivo data.

Ultrasound Scatterer Density Classification Using Convolutional Neural Networks and Patch Statistics

Quantitative ultrasound (QUS) can reveal crucial information on tissue properties, such as scatterer density. If the scatterer density per resolution cell is above or below 10, the tissue is considered as fully developed speckle (FDS) or underdeveloped speckle (UDS), respectively. Conventionally, the scatterer density has been classified using estimated statistical parameters of the amplitude of backscattered echoes. However, if the patch size is small, the estimation is not accurate. These parameters are also highly dependent on imaging settings. In this article, we adapt convolutional neural network (CNN) architectures for QUS and train them using simulation data. We further improve the network's performance by utilizing patch statistics as additional input channels. Inspired by deep supervision and multitask learning, we propose a second method to exploit patch statistics. We evaluate the networks using simulation data and experimental phantoms. We also compare our proposed methods with different classic and deep learning models and demonstrate their superior performance in the classification of tissues with different scatterer density values. The results also show that we are able to classify scatterer density in different imaging parameters with no need for a reference phantom. This work demonstrates the potential of CNNs in classifying scatterer density in ultrasound images.