Estimation of intramuscular fat content (IMF) in the muculus longis-simus dorsi (LD) of pigs by analysis of rf echosignals obtained from a clinical B-mode device

Changes of intramuscular fat content in meat are invisible in conventional B-mode images. On the other hand for commercial classification of meat objective assessment is needed. Ultrasound echoes, obtained from measurements using a clinical B-mode device, include characteristics of the scanned tissue area. A method for estimating the intramuscular fat content using ultrasound spectroscopy is described. Specific acoustical parameters like attenuation, backscattering and the cepstral structure were extracted from the measured rf echoes and their relation to the IMF is investigated. For terminating system dependent effects, a procedure for correcting these influences was developed. The method was applied to in vivo and in vitro measurements at 34 pigs of 4 different genotypes. With a probability of 75% the pigs were assigned into the correct out of 2 IMF classes.