Congratulations to Alycen Wiacek! Her first-author journal paper entitled “Robust Short-Lag Spatial Coherence Imaging of Breast Ultrasound Data: Initial Clinical Results” was accepted to the IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control. This paper will appear in the Special Issue on Pilot Clinical Translation of New Medical Ultrasound Methodologies.
This work is the first to investigate the application of short-lag spatial coherence (SLSC) imaging — and two new variations of this method developed in our lab (i.e., M-Weighted SLSC imaging and Robust SLSC imaging) — to breast ultrasound data. The two newer approaches revisit the lag summation step of SLSC imaging to achieve additional robustness to coherence outliers through weighted summation of individual coherence images (i.e., M-weighting) and through the application of robust principal component analysis (i.e., Robust SLSC, or R-SLSC).
An interesting finding from this initial investigation is that solid breast masses, which appear hypoechoic in traditional B-mode images, have similarly high coherence to that of surrounding tissue in these coherence-based images. This finding represents the first known instance of this phenomenon in hypoechoic ultrasound data from any type of tissue (including simulated, phantom, and in vivo liver data). This work shows great promise for implementing SLSC, M-Weighted SLSC, and/or R-SLSC imaging to distinguish between fluid-filled and solid hypoechoic breast masses, which has implications for improved breast cancer detection and screening, more streamlined diagnostic work ups, and reduced patient anxiety over suspicious breast mass findings.
Citation: A Wiacek, OMH Rindal, E Falomo, K Myers, K Fabrega-Foster, S Harvey, MAL Bell, Robust Short-Lag Spatial Coherence Imaging of Breast Ultrasound Data: Initial Clinical Results, IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control, accepted November 20, 2018 [pdf]
Also Available on Journal Website: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8548567