Tissue-type imaging using ultrasound tomography

A method to form a composite image of tissue-types utilizing ultrasound tomographic property-images is presented. This method, which is referred to as tissue-type imaging, has the potential to provide improved diagnostic value for biomedical applications such as breast cancer imaging. Each pixel of the final image obtains a single colour value corresponding to one tissue from a discrete set of tissue-types (e.g., skin, fat, glandular, tumor, and cyst). The composite tissue-type image is created by merging best prediction information obtained from quantitative images of three ultrasonic properties: compressibility, attenuation, and density. Examples based on synthetic scattered pressure data are shown where the data is obtained from an MRI-based numerical breast phantom. Estimated probability density functions for the expected variation of each tissue type´s ultrasonic properties are required to form the image.