Assessment of noise reduction in ultrasound images of common carotid and brachial arteries. Issue 1 (1st February 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Rafati, Mehravar; Arabfard, Masoud; Rafati Rahim Zadeh, Mehrdad; Maghsoudloo, Mazaher
• Is Part Of: IET computer vision. Volume 10:Issue 1(2016)
• Page Start: 1
• Page End: 8
• Publication Date: 2016-02-01
• Subjects: biomedical ultrasonics -- medical image processing -- blood vessels -- image denoising -- image filtering -- cardiovascular system -- motion estimation -- edge detection -- video signal processing -- image matching; noise reduction assessment -- ultrasound images -- common carotid artery -- brachial artery -- intima-media thickness -- subclinical atherosclerosis -- cardiovascular risk -- speckle reducing anisotropic diffusion filter -- MATLAB software -- bit map format -- audio video interleaves -- artery posterior walls -- block-matching techniques -- arterial motion estimation -- Canny edge detection -- mean square error -- peak signal-to-noise ratio -- cardiac cycles -- speckle suppression; Computer vision -- Periodicals; Pattern recognition systems -- Periodicals; 006.37
• DOI: 10.1049/iet-cvi.2014.0151
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1751-9632

Abstract

Abstract : The present study assessed the use of filters for noise reduction in ultrasound images of the common carotid artery (CCA) and brachial artery using intima–media thickness, which is a safe and non‐invasive technique for determining subclinical atherosclerosis and cardiovascular risk. A new combined speckle reducing anisotropic diffusion (SRAD) filter for noise reduction is then proposed. Ultrasonic examination of both arteries was performed on 30 men (aged 40 ± 5 years). The programme was designed using MATLAB software to extract consecutive images in bit map format from the audio video interleaves. An additional programme was designed in MATLAB to apply the region of interest (ROI) to the thickness of the intima–media of the posterior walls of the arteries. Block‐matching techniques were used to estimate arterial motion from ultrasound images of the B‐mode CCA and brachial artery. Different noise reduction filters and Canny edge detection were carried out separately in the ROI. The programme measured mean square error (MSE) and peak signal‐to‐noise ratio (PSNR). The results demonstrated that the new combined SRAD filter with Canny edge detection identified the lowest value for MSE and the highest value for PSNR in 90 consecutive frames (∼3 cardiac cycles). The results indicate that MSE and PSNR were better detected by the proposed combined SRAD filter with Canny edge detection than did several commonly used filters with Canny detection for speckle suppression and preservation detail in carotid and brachial arteries ultrasound images.