Quantitative diagnosis method based on model of tissue structure change for liver fibrosis

Abstract

To realize a quantitative diagnosis method of liver fibrosis, we have been developing a modeling method for the probability density function of the echo amplitude. We developed a scatterer distribution model of diseased livers considering the liver lobule structure, because computer simulations are effective for obtaining information on the continuous stage of diseases. We examined relationship between tissue characterization and ultrasonic B-mode image which is simulated by this scatterer distribution model. From these analyses, we proposed a multi-Rayleigh model with three Rayleigh distributions, corresponding to the distribution of the echo amplitude from hypoechoic, normal, and fibrous tissues. We showed quantitatively that the proposed model can model the amplitude distribution of liver fibrosis echo data adequately. We also found that fibrous indices can be estimated stably using the proposed model. To evaluate the liver fibrosis more accurately, each pixel's amplitude value in the clinical echo ima...