An improved distorted born iterative method for reduced computational complexity and enhanced image reconstruction in ultrasound tomography

Abstract

Ultrasound tomography (UT) is a promising technique for quantitative ultrasound imaging. It offers a more complex imaging mode than the conventional B-mode imaging. Quantitative information of tissues such as attenuation and sound contrast is exploited to detect structures which are smaller than the wavelength of the incident wave. However, most of basic and recent studies about UT have a high computational complexity because they have to solve large iterative forward and inverse problems. Among different techniques proposed for UT, Born Iterative Method (BIM) and Distort Born Iterative Method (DBIM) based on Born approximation have been introduced as efficient diffraction tomography approaches. DBIM can offer a faster convergence whereas BIM is less affected by noise. In this paper, we propose a simple and efficient scheme of BIM-interpolation-DBIM in order to reduce the computational complexity and to improve the image reconstruction. The combination of BIM and DBIM takes advantage of both methods while the interpolation process in the middle stage help speed up the convergence. Simulation scenarios whose parameters are inspired from a previous experiment have been performed in order to show the efficiency of the proposed scheme.