Abstract
Accurate detection of liver steatosis is important for liver disease management. Ultrasound
attenuation coefficient estimation (ACE) has great potential in quantifying liver
fat content. The ACE methods commonly assume uniform tissue characteristics. However,
in vivo tissues typically contain non-uniform structures, which may bias the attenuation
estimation and lead to large standard deviations. Here we propose a series of non-uniform
structure detection and removal (NSDR) methods to reduce the impact from non-uniform
structures during ACE analysis. The effectiveness of NSDR was validated through phantom
and in vivo studies. In a pilot clinical study, ACE with NSDR provided more robust in vivo performance as compared with ACE without NSDR, indicating its potential for in vivo applications.
Key Words
To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
Purchase one-time access:
Academic & Personal: 24 hour online accessCorporate R&D Professionals: 24 hour online accessOne-time access price info
- For academic or personal research use, select 'Academic and Personal'
- For corporate R&D use, select 'Corporate R&D Professionals'
Subscribe:
Subscribe to Ultrasound in Medicine and BiologyAlready a print subscriber? Claim online access
Already an online subscriber? Sign in
Register: Create an account
Institutional Access: Sign in to ScienceDirect
References
- Validity of real time ultrasound in the diagnosis of hepatic steatosis: A prospective study.J Hepatol. 2009; 51: 1061-1067
- Detection of liver steatosis with a novel ultrasound-based technique: a pilot study using MRI-derived proton density fat fraction as the gold standard.Clin Transl Gastroenterol. 2019; 10: e00081
- System-independent ultrasound attenuation coefficient estimation using spectra normalization.IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control. 2019; 66: 867-875
- Ultrasound attenuation estimation in harmonic imaging for robust fatty liver detection.Ultrasound Med Biol. 2020; 46: 3080-3087
- Noise suppression for ultrasound attenuation coefficient estimation based on spectrum normalization.IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control. 2021; 68: 2667-2674
- Assessment of hepatic steatosis in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease by using quantitative US.Radiology. 2020; 295: 106-113
- Epidemiology and risk-stratification of NAFLD-associated HCC.J Hepatol. 2021; 75: 1476-1484
- Prospective evaluation of hepatic steatosis using ultrasound attenuation imaging in patients with chronic liver disease with magnetic resonance imaging proton density fat fraction as the reference standard.Ultrasound Med Biol. 2019; 45: 1407-1416
- Quantitative Imaging Biomarkers of NAFLD.Digest Dis Sci. 2016; 61: 1337-1347
- arXiv preprint.2017
- Using speckle statistics to improve attenuation estimates for cervical assessment. Thesis.Ames Iowa State University, 2015
- A theoretical comparison of attenuation measurement techniques from backscattered ultrasound echoes.J Acoust Soc Am. 2011; 129: 2316-2324
- Detection of hepatic steatosis on contrast-enhanced CT images: Diagnostic accuracy of identification of areas of presumed focal fatty sparing.AJR Am J Roentgenol. 2012; 199: 44-47
- Correlation of ultrasonic attenuation with pathologic fat and fibrosis in liver disease.Ultrason Imaging. 1988; 10: 729-734
- Ultrasound backscatter and attenuation in human liver with diffuse disease.Ultrasound Med Biol. 1999; 25: 1047-1054
- Non-invasive diagnosis of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease: A critical appraisal.J Hepatol. 2013; 58: 1007-1019
- Defining optimal axial and lateral resolution for estimating scatterer properties from volumes using ultrasound backscatter.J Acoust Soc Am. 2004; 115: 3226-3234
- Controlled attenuation parameter (CAP): A novel VCTETM guided ultrasonic attenuation measurement for the evaluation of hepatic steatosis: preliminary study and validation in a cohort of patients with chronic liver disease from various causes.Ultrasound Med Biol. 2010; 36: 1825-1835
- Accuracy of MR imaging-estimated proton density fat fraction for classification of dichotomized histologic steatosis grades in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.Radiology. 2015; 274: 416-425
- Quantitative US attenuation in normal liver and in patients with diffuse liver disease: Importance of fat.Radiology. 1986; 160: 65-71
- The global epidemiology of NAFLD and NASH in patients with type 2 diabetes: A systematic review and meta-analysis.J Hepatol. 2019; 71: 793-801
Article info
Publication history
Published online: August 28, 2022
Accepted:
June 26,
2022
Received in revised form:
June 23,
2022
Received:
January 21,
2022
Identification
Copyright
© 2022 World Federation for Ultrasound in Medicine & Biology. All rights reserved.
