PMID- 33284753 OWN - NLM STAT- MEDLINE DCOM- 20211025 LR - 20240105 IS - 1525-8955 (Electronic) IS - 0885-3010 (Print) IS - 0885-3010 (Linking) VI - 68 IP - 5 DP - 2021 May TI - Analytic Global Regularized Backscatter Quantitative Ultrasound. PG - 1605-1617 LID - 10.1109/TUFFC.2020.3042942 [doi] AB - Although a variety of techniques have been developed to reduce the appearance of B-mode speckle, quantitative ultrasound (QUS) aims at extracting the hidden properties of the tissue. Herein, we propose two novel techniques to accurately and precisely estimate two important QUS parameters, namely, the average attenuation coefficient and the backscatter coefficient. Both the techniques optimize a cost function that incorporates data and continuity constraint terms, which we call AnaLytical Global rEgularized BackscatteR quAntitative ultrasound (ALGEBRA). We propose two versions of ALGEBRA, namely, 1-D- and 2-D-ALGEBRA. In 1-D-ALGEBRA, the regularized cost function is formulated in the axial direction, and the QUS parameters are calculated for one line of radio frequency (RF) echo data. In 2-D-ALGEBRA, the regularized cost function is formulated for the entire image, and the QUS parameters throughout the image are estimated simultaneously. This simultaneous optimization allows 2-D-ALGEBRA to "see" all the data before estimating the QUS parameters. In both the methods, we efficiently optimize the cost functions by casting it as a sparse linear system of equations. As a result of this efficient optimization, 1-D-ALGEBRA and 2-D-ALGEBRA are, respectively, 600 and 300 times faster than optimization using the dynamic programming (DP) method previously proposed by our group. In addition, the proposed technique has fewer input parameters that require manual tuning. Our results demonstrate that the proposed ALGEBRA methods substantially outperform least-square and DP methods in estimating the QUS parameters in phantom experiments. FAU - Jafarpisheh, Noushin AU - Jafarpisheh N FAU - Hall, Timothy J AU - Hall TJ FAU - Rivaz, Hassan AU - Rivaz H FAU - Rosado-Mendez, Ivan M AU - Rosado-Mendez IM LA - eng GR - R01 HD072077/HD/NICHD NIH HHS/United States GR - R01 HD096361/HD/NICHD NIH HHS/United States PT - Journal Article PT - Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural PT - Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't DEP - 20210426 PL - United States TA - IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control JT - IEEE transactions on ultrasonics, ferroelectrics, and frequency control JID - 9882735 SB - IM MH - *Algorithms MH - Least-Squares Analysis MH - Phantoms, Imaging MH - Ultrasonography PMC - PMC8214362 MID - NIHMS1697675 EDAT- 2020/12/08 06:00 MHDA- 2021/10/26 06:00 PMCR- 2022/05/01 CRDT- 2020/12/07 17:11 PHST- 2020/12/08 06:00 [pubmed] PHST- 2021/10/26 06:00 [medline] PHST- 2020/12/07 17:11 [entrez] PHST- 2022/05/01 00:00 [pmc-release] AID - 10.1109/TUFFC.2020.3042942 [doi] PST - ppublish SO - IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control. 2021 May;68(5):1605-1617. doi: 10.1109/TUFFC.2020.3042942. Epub 2021 Apr 26.