[Reconstruction of elasticity modulus distribution base on semi-supervised neural network].

Journal: Sheng wu yi xue gong cheng xue za zhi = Journal of biomedical engineering = Shengwu yixue gongchengxue zazhi
PMID:

Abstract

Accurate reconstruction of tissue elasticity modulus distribution has always been an important challenge in ultrasound elastography. Considering that existing deep learning-based supervised reconstruction methods only use simulated displacement data with random noise in training, which cannot fully provide the complexity and diversity brought by ultrasound data, this study introduces the use of displacement data obtained by tracking ultrasound radio frequency signals (i.e., real displacement data) during training, employing a semi-supervised approach to enhance the prediction accuracy of the model. Experimental results indicate that in phantom experiments, the semi-supervised model augmented with real displacement data provides more accurate predictions, with mean absolute errors and mean relative errors both around 3%, while the corresponding data for the fully supervised model are around 5%. When processing real displacement data, the area of prediction error of semi-supervised model was less than that of fully supervised model. The findings of this study confirm the effectiveness and practicality of the proposed approach, providing new insights for the application of deep learning methods in the reconstruction of elastic distribution from ultrasound data.

Authors

  • Xiao Zhang
    Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA.
  • Bo Peng
    Institute for Environmental and Climate Research, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China.
  • Rui Wang
    Department of Clinical Laboratory Medicine Center, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region People's Hospital, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China.
  • Xingyue Wei
  • Jianwen Luo
    Departmemt of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China.