Contrast enhancement for Ring-Echo image: A probability weighting approach to synthetic aperture reconstruction

Ring-Echo is an ultrasound imaging system for breast cancer diagnosis and screening. It creates B-mode echo images using a ring-shaped transducer that acquires reflection signals. Our system adopts synthetic aperture for echo image reconstruction. However, the contrast is suboptimal for efficient breast cancer detection. We identify that conventional method overlooks the probability of each pixel’s contribution to the transmission-receiving pair’s signal. This work proposes incorporating a weighting tensor in the beamforming stage to enhance the contrast of the Ring-Echo image. Simulation study shows improved contrast using our method. We consider this method an effective technique toward better breast cancer diagnosis.