A method is provided for detecting lesions in ultrasound images. The method includes acquiring ultrasound information, determining discriminative descriptors that describe the texture of a candidate lesion region, and classifying each of the discriminative descriptors as one of a top boundary pixel, a lesion interior pixel, a lower boundary pixel, or a normal tissue pixel. The method also includes determining a pattern of transitions between the classified discriminative descriptors, and classifying the candidate lesion region as a lesion or normal tissue based on the pattern of transitions between the classified discriminative descriptors.