# UNICORN: Ultrasound Nakagami Imaging via Score Matching and Adaptation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.06275 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.06275/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 2 of its 21 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 10 Mar 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Noise2Score: Tweedie's Approach to Self-Supervised Image Denoising without Clean Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.07009/) (2021)
- [Noise Distribution Adaptive Self-Supervised Image Denoising using Tweedie Distribution and Score Matching](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.03696/) (2021)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Nakagami imaging holds promise for visualizing and quantifying tissue scattering in ultrasound waves, with potential applications in tumor diagnosis and fat fraction estimation which are challenging to discern by conventional ultrasound B-mode images. Existing methods struggle with optimal window size selection and suffer from estimator instability, leading to degraded resolution images. To address this, here we propose a novel method called UNICORN (Ultrasound Nakagami Imaging via Score Matching and Adaptation), that offers an accurate, closed-form estimator for Nakagami parameter estimation in terms of the score function of ultrasonic envelope. Extensive experiments using simulation and real ultrasound RF data demonstrate UNICORN's superiority over conventional approaches in accuracy and resolution quality.