Detection of carotid intima and media thicknesses based on ultrasound B-mode images clustered with Gaussian Mixture Model

摘要

A method based on ultrasound B-mode images clustered with the Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) was proposed toimprove the detection accuracy of intima and media thicknesses in carotid arteries. Firstly, the B-mode images wereclustered based on the GMM, and the boundary between the intima and media of the vessel wall is then detected by thegray threshold algorithm to estimate the thicknesses of the inner and middle membranes. With 28 healthy subjects, thethicknesses of intima and media based on GMM cluster processing were (0.1675±0.0164) mm and (0.2278±0.0208) mm,respectively. Compared with the results based on original B-mode images of (0.1742±0.0208) mm and (0.2211±0.022)mm, the standard deviations based on GMM images were reduced by 21% and 5%, respectively. Compared with theresults finely measured by two professional doctors, the mean error of intima and media thickness based on GMMimages decreased by 7.5 % and 8.7%, respectively. The proposed method is helpful to provide the accurate diagnosisinformation for cardiovascular diseases in early stage.