Lesion contrast enhancement in medical ultrasound imaging

Methods for improving the contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) of low-contrast lesions in medical ultrasound imaging are described. Differences in the frequency spectra and amplitude distributions of the lesion and its surroundings can be used to increase the CNR of the lesion relative to the background. Automated graylevel mapping is used in combination with a contrast-weighted form of frequency-diversity speckle reduction. In clinical studies, the techniques have yielded mean CNR improvements of 3.2 dB above ordinary frequency-diversity imaging and 5.6 dB over sharper conventional images, with no post-processing graylevel mapping.