Acoustic attenuation estimation for soft tissue from ultrasound echo envelope peaks

A theoretical framework of a modified EP (envelope peak) method is developed. In this method, a wideband echo signal from each A line (one echo sequence) is first filtered in parallel by a bank of narrow-bandpass filters using a split-spectrum processing. The attenuation is then estimated from the EPs of each filtered signal using a narrowband technique. The combination of the split-spectrum processing with the narrowband technique enables the accuracy of the attenuation estimation to be well controlled without the precise measurements of the spectral shape and parameters of the transmitted pulses. On the other hand, the precision of the estimation is still determined by the bandwidth of the original echo signal, and is not affected by the split-spectrum processing. As a result, the modified EP method improves the accuracy of the attenuation estimation while retaining the high precision of the original EP method. Results from phantom experiments supported the theoretical analysis.