Rational gain compensation for attenuation in cardiac ultrasonography

A new method of compensating for the attenuation of ultrasound by chest wall, myocardium and blood has been devised by using an optimum threshold to distinguish between blood and myocardium. This allows changing receiver gain at rates suitable for either blood or myocardium for each line-of-sight forming a real-time image. Compensation artifacts arising from the effects of speckle or phase cancellation are minimized by using a one-bit digital filter after threshold detection. This method of compensation is a necessary first step toward quantitative two-dimensional echocardiography. ?NHLBI 14388