I'm sure ultrasound noise is a common topic of research.
Go here to find papers on the subject: Vision Bibliography
You should be able to find something there. For example, just a small sampling:
20.12.3 Ultrasound, Ultrasonic, Speckle Removal, Analysis
Adaptive speckle reduction filter for log-compressed B-scan images,
MedImg(15), No. 6, December 1996, pp. 802-813.
Detection of lines and boundaries in speckle images-application to medical ultrasound,
MedImg(18), No. 2, February 1999, pp. 126-136.
Earlier:
Ultrasound speckle reduction by directional median filtering,
ICIP95(I: 358-361).
Earlier:
Edge detection in ultrasound speckle noise,
ICIP94(III: 304-308).