The measurement of tissue attenuation from pulse-echo data has been widely investigated. This paper examines correction of the measurements for the effect of the transducer beam. Computer and experimental studies are performed on a number of reflectors including smooth and rough planes, ideal point scatterers, T.M. material and liver and spleen tissue. It is shown that the corrections obtained from T.M. phantom material differ from those obtained using in vivo tissue as the reflector and corrections for liver and spleen differ markedly. Comment is made on the possibility of using “beam correction” itself as a tissue characterization parameter.
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