Title: An adaptive non-linear PDE-based speckle reduction technique for ultrasound images

Authors: Rajeev Srivastava, J.R.P. Gupta, Harish Parthasarathy, Subodh Srivastava

Addresses: Department of Computer Engineering, Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University (IT-BHU), Varanasi 221005, Uttar Pradesh, India. ' Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering, Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology, Sector-3, Dwarka, New Delhi, India. ' Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology, Sector-3, Dwarka, New Delhi, India. ' School of Biomedical Engineering, Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University (ITBHU), Varanasi 221005, Uttar Pradesh, India

Abstract: In this paper, an adaptive nonlinear complex diffusion based filter is proposed to reduce the speckle noise from ultrasound images. The adaptive and modified version of a fourth order PDE is also proposed and examined for its suitability and efficacy for speckle reduction from ultrasound images. The performance of the proposed method is compared with constraint driven anisotropic diffusion based method, modified fourth order PDE based method and other methods such as Speckle Reducing Anisotropic Diffusion (SRAD) filter, Lee filter, Frost filter and Kuan filter in terms of various performance metrics such as Mean Square Error (MSE), Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR), Correlation Parameter (CP) and Mean Structure Similarity Index Map (MSSIM). The obtained results justify the applicability of the proposed scheme.

Keywords: speckle reduction; ultrasound images; partial differential equations; nonlinear adaptive complex diffusion filters; adaptive diffusion-based PDEs; adaptive edge threshold parameter; performance comparison; medical imaging; biomedical engineering.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBET.2011.041468

International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology, 2011 Vol.6 No.3, pp.304 - 322

Published online: 21 Jan 2015 *

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