Venous blood clot structure characterization using scattering operator

Abstract

Deep venous thrombosis (DVT) occurs when a blood clot appear within a deep vein, usually in the legs. The main complication is pulmonary embolism (PE) which is the third cause of vascular death after myocardial infarction and cardiovascular event. DVT onset is multifactorial (immobilization, surgery, age, cancers, genetic variations) and it is mostly diagnosed via ultrasound. In our project, we are interested in a new approach, which consists in using ultrasound and elastography to assess the mechanical properties of blood clots and to identify the thrombosis triggering factors. This means characterizing its structure, establishing his age, the cause of its formation and the risk of PE. In this paper, we aim to analyze the clot texture using the scattering operator which combines wavelet transform convolutions with non-linear modulus and averaging operators. The scattering operator is showing promising results in signal processing and especially in image classification. Therefore, we will apply this operator to our database and discuss the results of our simulation at the end of this manuscript.