The attenuating properties of biological tissue are of great importance in ultrasonic medical imaging. Investigations performed in vitro and in vivo showed the correlation between pathological changes in the tissue and variation of the attenuation coefficient. In order to estimate the attenuation we have used the downshift of mean frequency (fm) of the interrogating ultrasonic pulse propagating in the medium. To determine the fm along the propagation path we have applied the fm estimator (I/Q algorithm adopted from the Doppler mean frequency estimation technique). The mean-frequency shift trend was calculated using Single Spectrum Analysis. Next, the trends were converted into attenuation coefficient distributions and finally the parametric images were computed. The RF data were collected in simulations and experiments applying the synthetic aperture (SA) transmit-receiving scheme. In measurements the ultrasonic scanner enabling a full control of the transmission and reception was used. The resolution and accuracy of the method was verified using tissue mimicking phantom with uniform echogenicity but varying attenuation coefficient.

The paper considers the application of statistical properties of backscattered ultrasonic signal for assessment of the trabecular bone status.

Computer simulations were conducted to investigate the properties of the ultrasound pulse-echo signal, as it is received on the transducer surface after scattering in trabecular bone. The micro-architecture of trabecular bone was modeled by a random distribution of long and thin cylindrical scatterers of randomly varying diameters and mechanical properties, oriented perpendicular to the ultrasound beam axis. The received echo signal was calculated as a superposition of echoes from all the scatterers present in the scattering volume.

The simulated signal envelope was used for statistical processing to compute various parameters like the mean amplitude, the amplitude MSR defined as the ratio of the mean to the standard deviation and the amplitude histogram.

Results indicated that while for the well-defined trabeculae properties within the simulated bone structure the signal envelope values are Rayleigh distributed the significant departures from Rayleigh statistics may be expected as the thickness of trabeculae become random. The influence of the variation of mechanical properties of the bone tissue building the trabeculae on the bone backscattered signal parameters was not observed.

The pathological states of biological tissue are often resulted in attenuation changes. Thus, information about attenuating properties of tissue is valuable for the physician and could be useful in ultrasonic diagnosis. We are currently developing a technique for parametric imaging of attenuation and we intend to apply it for in vivo characterization of tissue. The attenuation estimation method based on the echoes mean frequency changes due to tissue attenuation dispersion, is presented. The Doppler IQ technique was adopted to estimate the mean frequency directly from the raw RF data. The Singular Spectrum Analysis technique was used for the extraction of mean frequency trends. These trends were converted into attenuation distribution and finally the parametric images were computed. In order to reduce variation of attenuation estimates the spatial compounding method was applied. Operation and accuracy of attenuation extracting procedure was verified by calculating the attenuation coefficient distribution using the data from the tissue phantom (DFS, Denmark) with uniform echogenicity while attenuation coefficient underwent variation.