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 Altering 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 Altering 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.