Abstract
Deformation estimation by block matching plays a central role in most ultrasonic elastography systems. However, not all matches are equally reliable, since the data in many blocks may be severely decorrelated for a number of reasons, including electrical noise, intra-window strain and out-of-plane motion. Conventionally, an estimate of the match quality is derived from the post-alignment similarity metric and used to reject poor matches. This paper moves beyond such rejection thresholds in two ways. First, a displacement tracking strategy is described, in which the tracking direction is not fixed in advance but is generated dynamically according to the quality metric. Second, a nonparametric regression technique is used to smooth the resulting strain images, with more smoothing in low quality regions and less in high quality regions. Simulation and in vivo results show how these two innovations help to improve the accuracy and intelligibility of the strain images.
Keywords
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Shi, H., Varghese, T.: Two-dimensional multi-level strain estimation for discontinuous tissue. Phys. Med. Biol. 52, 389–401 (2007)
Lindop, J.E., Treece, G.M., Gee, A.H., Prager, R.W.: Dynamic resolution selection in ultrasonic strain imaging. Ultrasound Med. Biol. 34(5), 809–823 (2008a)
Lindop, J.E., Treece, G.M., Gee, A.H., Prager, R.W.: Phase-based ultrasonic deformation estimation. IEEE Trans. Ultrason. Ferroelect. Freq. Contr. 55(1), 94–111 (2008c)
Treece, G.M., Lindop, J.E., Gee, A.H., Prager, R.W.: Uniform precision ultrasound strain imaging. Tech. Rep. CUED/F-INFENG/TR 624, Cambridge University Department of Engineering (2009)
Pesavento, A., Perrey, C., Krueger, M.H.E.: A time efficient and accurate strain estimation concept for ultrasonic elastography using iterative phase zero estimation. IEEE Trans. Ultrason. Ferroelect. Freq. Contr. 46(5), 1057–1067 (1999)
Zhu, Y., Hall, T.J.: A modified block matching method for real-time freehand strain imaging. Ultrason. Imag. 24, 161–176 (2002)
Jiang, J., Hall, T.J.: A parallelizable real-time motion tracking algorithm with applications to ultrasonic strain imaging. Phys. Med. Biol. 52, 3773–3790 (2007)
Zahiri-Azar, R., Salcudean, S.E.: Motion estimation in ultrasound images using time domain cross correlation with prior estimates. IEEE Trans. Biomed. Eng. 53, 1990–2000 (2006)
Langeland, S., d’Hooge, J., Torp, H., Bijnens, B., Suetens, P.: Comparison of time-domain displacement estimators for two-dimensional RF tracking. Ultrasound Med. Biol. 29, 1177–1186 (2003)
Ophir, J., C´Espedes, I., Ponnekanti, H., Yazdi, Y., Li, X.: Elastography: A quantitative method for imaging the elasticity of biological tissues. Ultrason. Imag. 13(2), 111–134 (1991)
O’Donnell, M., Skovoroda, A.R., Shapo, B.M.: Measurement of arterial wall motion using Fourier based speckle tracking algorithms. In: Proceedings of the IEEE Ultrasonics Symposium, pp. 1101–1104 (1991)
O’Donnell, M., Skovoroda, A.R., Shapo, B.M., Emelianov, S.Y.: Internal displacement and strain imaging using ultrasonic speckle tracking. IEEE Trans. Ultrason. Ferroelect. Freq. Contr. 41, 314–325 (1994)
Viola, F., Walker, W.F.: A comparison of the performance of time-delay estimators in medical ultrasound. IEEE Trans. Ultrason. Ferroelect. Freq. Contr. 50, 392–401 (2003)
Chen, L., Treece, G.M., Lindop, J.E., Gee, A.H., Prager, R.W.: A quality-guided displacement tracking algorithm for ultrasonic elasticity imaging. Med. Image Anal., in press (2009)
Chen, L., Housden, R.J., Treece, G.M., Gee, A.H., Prager, R.W.: A hybrid displacement estimation method for ultrasonic elasticity imaging. Tech. Rep. CUED/FINFENG/TR 615, Cambridge University Department of Engineering (2008)
Jensen, J.A.: Field: A program for simulating ultrasound systems. In: Proceedings of the 10th Nordic-Baltic Conference on Biomedical Imaging. Tampere, pp. 351–353 (1996)
Treece, G.M., Lindop, J.E., Gee, A. H., Prager, R.W.: Freehand ultrasound elastography with a 3-D probe. Ultrasound Med. Biol. 34(3), 463–474 (2008)
Lindop, J.E., Treece, G.M., Gee, A., Prager, R.W.: An intelligent interface for freehand strain imaging. Ultrasound Med. Biol. 34(7), 1117–1128 (2008b)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
About this paper
Cite this paper
Gee, A.H., Treece, G., Chen, L., Prager, R. (2011). The Use of Quality Metrics in Ultrasonic Strain Imaging. In: André, M., Jones, J., Lee, H. (eds) Acoustical Imaging. Acoustical Imaging, vol 30. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3255-3_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3255-3_11
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-3254-6
Online ISBN: 978-90-481-3255-3
eBook Packages: Physics and AstronomyPhysics and Astronomy (R0)