title: Modeling the envelope statistics of three-dimensional high-frequency ultrasound echo signals from dissected human lymph nodes.
abstract: This work investigates the statistics of the envelope of three-dimensional (3D) high-frequency ultrasound (HFU) data acquired from dissected human lymph nodes (LNs). Nine distributions were employed, and their parameters were estimated using the method of moments. The Kolmogorov Smirnov (KS) metric was used to quantitatively compare the fit of each candidate distribution to the experimental envelope distribution. The study indicates that the generalized gamma distribution best models the statistics of the envelope data of the three media encountered: LN parenchyma, fat and phosphate-buffered saline (PBS). Furthermore, the envelope statistics of the LN parenchyma satisfy the pre-Rayleigh condition. In terms of high fitting accuracy and computationally efficient parameter estimation, the gamma distribution is the best choice to model the envelope statistics of LN parenchyma, while, the Weibull distribution is the best choice to model the envelope statistics of fat and PBS. These results will contribute to the development of more-accurate and automatic 3D segmentation of LNs for ultrasonic detection of clinically significant LN metastases.
authors.affiliation: Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ. Paris 06, UMR 7371, UMR_S 1146, Laboratoire d'Imagerie Biomédicale, F-75006, Paris, France.
authors.forename: Thanh Minh
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Bui
authors.affiliation: CNRS, UMR 7371, Laboratoire d'Imagerie Biomédicale, F-75006, Paris, France.
authors.forename: Alain
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Coron
authors.affiliation: INSERM, UMR_S 1146, Laboratoire d'Imagerie Biomédicale, F-75006, Paris, France.
authors.forename: Jonathan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Mamou
authors.affiliation: F. L. Lizzi Center for Biomedical Engineering, Riverside Research, New York, NY 10038, U.S.A.
authors.forename: Emi
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Saegusa-Beecroft
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, University of Hawaii and Kuakini Medical Center, Honolulu, HI 96817, U.S.A.
authors.forename: Tadashi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Yamaguchi
authors.affiliation: Center for Frontier Medical Engineering, Chiba University, Chiba 263-8522, Japan.
authors.forename: Eugene
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Yanagihara
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Kuakini Medical Center, Honolulu, HI 96817, U.S.A.
authors.forename: Junji
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Machi
authors.forename: S Lori
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Bridal
authors.forename: Ernest J
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Feleppa