DETECTION OF MICROCALCIFICATIONS IN ANATOMY USING QUANTITATIVE TRANSMISSION ULTRASOUND TOMOGRAPHY

1 . A system comprising:

a display;

a processor;

storage; and

instructions for performing calcification detection stored on the storage that when executed by the processor, direct the system to at least:

receive a reflection image of an object, the reflection image being a refraction-corrected reflection image generated from imaging data of a quantitative ultrasound imaging system;

perform a thresholding process on the reflection image;

remove skin voxels from the reflection image;

perform a morphology analysis using at least the reflection image to identify voxels likely to correspond to microcalcifications and discard voxels that are not likely to correspond to the microcalcifications; and

after the morphology analysis, provide a resulting image to the display, the resulting image indicating any microcalcifications in the reflection image using the voxels identified as likely to correspond to the microcalcifications.

2 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the instructions to perform the morphology analysis direct the system to:

identify voxels having an intensity higher than a threshold intensity as satisfying an intensity criterion; and

determine whether, for any arbitrary plane in the imaging data, there exists a set of adjacent voxels that satisfy the intensity criterion and a size criterion.

3 . The system of claim 2 , wherein the size criterion is a range between 5 adjacent voxels and 20 adjacent voxels.

4 . The system of claim 1 , further comprising instructions to:

perform, before the morphology analysis, image deconvolution using a prior knowledge of the object.

5 . The system of claim 1 , further comprising instructions to:

perform, after the morphology analysis, image deconvolution using regions having voxels identified as likely to correspond to the microcalcifications.

6 . The system of claim 1 , further comprising instructions to:

apply one or more image filters on the refraction-corrected reflection image to remove outlier voxels.

7 . The system of claim 6 , wherein the one or more image filters comprises a median filter.

8 . The system of claim 6 , wherein the one or more image filters comprises an image de-noising method.

9 . The system of claim 1 , further comprising instructions to:

perform image deconvolution on the reflection image.

10 . The system of claim 1 , further comprising instructions to:

apply a varying log compression to intensity values of the reflection image.

11 . One or more computer-readable storage media having instructions stored thereon that when executed by a computing system, direct the computing system to at least:

perform a thresholding process on a reflection image;

remove skin voxels from the reflection image;

perform a morphology analysis to identify voxels likely to correspond to microcalcifications and discard voxels that are not likely to correspond to the microcalcifications, the morphology analysis directing the computing system to:

identify voxels having an intensity higher than a threshold intensity as satisfying an intensity criterion; and

determine whether, for any arbitrary plane in imaging data including the reflection image, there exists a set of adjacent voxels that satisfy the intensity criterion and a size criterion; and

after the morphology analysis, provide a resulting image to display, the resulting image indicating any microcalcifications in the reflection image using the voxels identified as likely to correspond to the microcalcifications.

12 . The media of claim 11 , further comprising instructions to generate the reflection image, the reflection image being a refraction-corrected reflection image generated from imaging data of a quantitative ultrasound imaging system.

13 . The media of claim 12 , further comprising instructions to:

perform image deconvolution before spatial compounding of individual views during generation of reflection images including the reflection image.

14 . The media of claim 12 , further comprising instructions to:

perform image deconvolution after spatial compounding of individual views and refraction-correction during generation of reflection images including the reflection image.

15 . The media of claim 11 , further comprising instructions to:

perform, before the morphology analysis, image deconvolution using a prior knowledge of an object in the reflection image.

16 . The media of claim 11 , further comprising instructions to:

perform, after the morphology analysis, image deconvolution using regions having voxels identified as likely to correspond to the microcalcifications.

17 . A method of detecting microcalcifications, comprising:

receiving a refraction-corrected reflection image from imaging data of a quantitative ultrasound imaging system;

performing a thresholding process on the refraction-corrected reflection image;

removing skin voxels from the refraction-corrected reflection image; and

performing a morphology analysis to identify voxels likely to correspond to microcalcifications and discard voxels that are not likely to correspond to the microcalcifications; and

after performing the thresholding process, the removing of the skin voxels, and the morphology analysis on the refraction-corrected reflection image, providing a resulting image, the resulting image displaying any microcalcifications in the refraction-corrected reflection image.

18 . The method of claim 17 , further comprising:

applying one or more image filters on the refraction-corrected reflection image.

19 . The method of claim 17 , further comprising performing one or both of:

performing image deconvolution on uncompounded views and/or the refraction-corrected reflection image, the refraction-corrected reflection image being a compounded image;

applying a varying log compression to intensity values of the refraction-corrected reflection image.

20 . The method of claim 17 , wherein performing the morphology analysis comprises:

identifying voxels having an intensity higher than a threshold intensity as satisfying an intensity criterion; and

determining whether, for any arbitrary plane in the imaging data, there exists a set of adjacent voxels that satisfy the intensity criterion and a size criterion.