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Preprocessing techniques with medical ultrasound common carotid artery images

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Abstract

Carotid Intima Media Thickness (cIMT) is simple and inexpensive clinical marker used for the prediction and assessment of future cardio/cerebrovascular diseases. The B-mode ultrasound (US) image is the best possible imaging option for measuring Carotid Intima Media Thickness (cIMT). Status of the cIMT gives good analysis of the common carotid vascular structure. The presence of speckle noise in the ultrasound images affects the clarity of the medical details, deteriorating the precision of analysis and thereby diagnosis in a clinical decision support system. The preprocessing algorithms make the post-processing operations efficient. The complexity and performance of the preprocessing algorithms vary. This review paper, in detail, presents the various preprocessing schemes for the removal of speckle in carotid ultrasound images. US preprocessing can be done in both image domain and with the raw US radio frequency (RF) data or the signal domain, captured prior before conversion to grayscale image. This article focuses and highlights the preprocessing schemes and techniques in detail with a brief discussion on the US acquisition system, importance of preprocessing, recent advancements in US imaging, aspects of imaging carotid intima and the artifacts and the various preprocessing quality metrics.

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  1. Amal Jyothi College of Engineering, Kanjirappally, Kottayam, Kerala, India

    Paulin Paul

  2. Chandigarh University, Ludhiana, Chandigarh, Punjab, India

    B. Priestly Shan

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  1. Paulin Paul
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Paul, P., Shan, B.P. Preprocessing techniques with medical ultrasound common carotid artery images. Soft Comput (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00500-023-07998-0

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