Technology trends and applications of deep learning in ultrasonography: image quality enhancement, diagnostic support, and improving workflow efficiency.

In this review of the most recent applications of deep learning to ultrasound imaging, the architectures of deep learning networks are briefly explained for the medical imaging applications of classification, detection, segmentation, and generation. Ultrasonography applications for image processing and diagnosis are then reviewed and summarized, along with some representative imaging studies of the breast, thyroid, heart, kidney, liver, and fetal head. Efforts towards workflow enhancement are also reviewed, with an emphasis on view recognition, scanning guide, image quality assessment, and quantification and measurement.

Diagnosis of Thyroid Nodules: Performance of a Deep Learning Convolutional Neural Network Model vs. Radiologists.

Computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) systems hold potential to improve the diagnostic accuracy of thyroid ultrasound (US). We aimed to develop a deep learning-based US CAD system (dCAD) for the diagnosis of thyroid nodules and compare its performance with those of a support vector machine (SVM)-based US CAD system (sCAD) and radiologists. dCAD was developed by using US images of 4919 thyroid nodules from three institutions.

A deep learning framework for supporting the classification of breast lesions in ultrasound images.

In this research, we exploited the deep learning framework to differentiate the distinctive types of lesions and nodules in breast acquired with ultrasound imaging. A biopsy-proven benchmarking dataset was built from 5151 patients cases containing a total of 7408 ultrasound breast images, representative of semi-automatically segmented lesions associated with masses. The dataset comprised 4254 benign and 3154 malignant lesions.

Multiobjective evolutionary optimization for tumor segmentation of breast ultrasound images.

This paper proposes a robust multiobjective evolutionary algorithm (MOEA) to optimize parameters of tumor segmentation for ultrasound breast images. The proposed algorithm employs efficient schemes for reinforcing proximity to Pareto-optimal and diversity of solutions. They are designed to solve multiobjective problems for segmentation accuracy and speed.

Fourier-based shape feature extraction technique for computer-aided B-Mode ultrasound diagnosis of breast tumor.

Early detection of breast tumor is critical in determining the best possible treatment approach. Due to its superiority compared with mammography in its possibility to detect lesions in dense breast tissue, ultrasound imaging has become an important modality in breast tumor detection and classification. This paper discusses the novel Fourier-based shape feature extraction techniques that provide enhanced classification accuracy for breast tumor in the computer-aided B-mode ultrasound diagnosis system.

Combining CRF and multi-hypothesis detection for accurate lesion segmentation in breast sonograms.

The implementation of lesion segmentation for breast ultrasound image relies on several diagnostic rules on intensity, texture, etc. In this paper, we propose a novel algorithm to achieve a comprehensive decision upon these rules by incorporating image over-segmentation and lesion detection in a pairwise CRF model, rather than a term-by-term translation. Multiple detection hypotheses are used to propagate object-level cues to segments and a unified classifier is trained based on the concatenated features.