Achieving fluid detection by exploiting shadow detection methods

Ultrasound provides a useful and readily available imaging tool. The big challenge in acquiring a good ultrasound image are possible shadow artefacts that hide anatomical structures. This applies in particular to 3D ultrasound acquisitions, because shadow artefacts may be recorded outside the visualized image plane. There are only a few automatic methods for shadow artefact detection. In our work we like to introduce a new shadow detection method that is based on an adaptive thresholding approach. The development was attempted, after existing methods had been extended to separate shadow and fluid regions. The entire detection procedure utilizes only the ultrasound scan line information and some basic knowledge about the ultrasound propagation inside the human body. Applying our method, the ultrasound operator can retrieve combined information about shadow and fluid locations, that may be invaluable for image acquisition or diagnosis. The method can be applied to conventional 2D as well as 3D ultrasound images.