APS-USCT: Ultrasound Computed Tomography on Sparse Data via AI-Physic Synergy

TL;DR

The paper introduces APS-USCT, a novel AI-physic hybrid method that enables high-quality ultrasound computed tomography imaging using sparse data, reducing costs and complexity while maintaining high reconstruction accuracy.

Contribution

It presents a new two-component approach combining waveform preprocessing and direct SOS reconstruction, improving USCT imaging with sparse data through AI and physics integration.

Findings

Achieved an average SSIM of 0.8431 on breast cancer data

Over 82% of samples had SSIM above 0.8

Nearly 61% of samples exceeded SSIM of 0.85

Abstract

Ultrasound computed tomography (USCT) is a promising technique that achieves superior medical imaging reconstruction resolution by fully leveraging waveform information, outperforming conventional ultrasound methods. Despite its advantages, high-quality USCT reconstruction relies on extensive data acquisition by a large number of transducers, leading to increased costs, computational demands, extended patient scanning times, and manufacturing complexities. To mitigate these issues, we propose a new USCT method called APS-USCT, which facilitates imaging with sparse data, substantially reducing dependence on high-cost dense data acquisition. Our APS-USCT method consists of two primary components: APS-wave and APS-FWI. The APS-wave component, an encoder-decoder system, preprocesses the waveform data, converting sparse data into dense waveforms to augment sample density prior to reconstruction. The APS-FWI component, utilizing the InversionNet, directly reconstructs the speed of sound (SOS) from the ultrasound waveform data. We further improve the model's performance by incorporating Squeeze-and-Excitation (SE) Blocks and source encoding techniques. Testing our method on a breast cancer dataset yielded promising results. It demonstrated outstanding performance with an average Structural Similarity Index (SSIM) of 0.8431. Notably, over 82% of samples achieved an SSIM above 0.8, with nearly 61% exceeding 0.85, highlighting the significant potential of our approach in improving USCT image reconstruction by efficiently utilizing sparse data.