Speckle Noise Reduction in Ultrasound Images using Fuzzy Shrinking Technique

An ultrasound image provides the radiologist with noninvasive, low cost, and real-time images that can help them in diagnosis, planning and therapy. However low PSNR (picture signal to noise ratio) in ultrasound images causes difficulties in correct interpretation of ultrasound images. Further speckle noise present in ultrasound images is considered to be the major cause of its low PSNR. In this paper a fuzzy based system is proposed for reducing the speckle noise and making the images capable in diagnosing abnormal tissues and masses. An adaptive fuzzy complex diffusion speckle denoising (AFCDSD) model is combined with fuzzy shrinking for speckle noise removal. The proposed system is compared with some existing techniques using PSNR. The results show that adaptive fuzzy complex diffusion when combined with fuzzy shrinking outperforms other filters in terms of high PSNR.