Review of nonlinear filters for medical ultrasonic images

Ultrasound medical imaging has been widely applied in clinic diagnoses because of its real-time, non-invasiveness and convenience. However, it suffers from severe speckle noises. Until now, a lot of filtering algorithms have been proposed, but none of them is satisfactory. In this paper, four nonlinear filter methods, based on median filter, wavelet decomposition and anisotropic diffusion, are systematically reviewed. Finally, the prospect of the nonlinear filtering method is discussed.