Comparing the performance of ultrasonic liver image enhancement techniques: A preference study

Abstract

This is a preliminary study and the objective of this study has been to compare the performance of some of the -primitive and fundamentally different post acquisition image enhancement algorithms as applied to ultrasound (US) liver images. Such a comparison would help to decide as to which algorithm could be useful for clinicians, and in evaluating the role of US liver image enhancement in a soft-copy environment. In this study, 10 US liver images were taken, and 5 fundamentally different and widely employed image enhancement techniques were applied on these images. As the principal objective of image enhancement is to obtain an image with a high content of visual detail, a multipoint rank-order method was used to identify small differences or trends in observations. Among the -different algorithms, the morphological filtering outperformed other techniques. The images with diffused liver diseases had a preference of 76% and the images with cystic masses had a preference of 67%. Wavelet-based filtering closely -followed this with 63% of preference in respect of images with a diffused liver disease and 57% of preference in -respect of images with cystic masses. © 2010 by the IETE.