Ultrasound Imaging and Image Segmentation in the area of Ultrasound: A Review

Segmentation remains a necessary step in medical imaging to obtain qualitative measurements such as the location of objects of interest as well as for quantitative measurements such as area, volume or the analysis of dynamic behavior of anatomical structures over time. Among these images, ultrasound images play a crucial role, because they can be produced at video-rate and therefore allow a dynamic analysis of moving structures. Moreover, the acquisition of these images is non-invasive, cheap, and does not require ionizing radiations compared to other medical imaging techniques. On the other hand, the automatic segmentation of anatomical structures in ultrasound imagery is a real challenge due to acoustic interferences (speckle noise) and artifacts which are inherent in these images. Here we discuss the ultrasound image segmentation methods, in a broad sense, focusing on techniques developed for medical. First, we present basic methods of image segmentation and forming of ultrasound images. After that we discuss the basics on ultrasound image segmentation. Second section explains the ultrasonic image segmentation methods based on clinical applications. On the other hand Third section explains the ultrasound image segmentation based on particular methodology.