A Comparative Analysis of Various Filters for Noise Reduction in Cardiac Ultrasound Images

Cardiac ultrasound (US) images are used to obtain qualitative information about the outline of the organ and type of tissue, as well as quantitative information on the thickness and movement of the internal walls and layers of the heart. Speckle noise generally masks the fine details of the US image and makes its interpretation difficult for medical diagnosis. This paper presents various filters for noise reduction in cardiac US images, which have been discussed and compared.