Abstract
Ultrasound elastography is an imaging technique addressed to investigate the tissue elastic properties. In freehand elastography, the ultrasound probe is moved by the operator to compress the tissue while the echo RF-data are processed to estimate the axial strain tensor by calculating the gradient of the corresponding displacement.
In this paper we discuss the possible advantages of high frame-rate (HFR) imaging applied to freehand quasi-static elastography. In particular, the availability of HFR images is exploited to improve the S/N ratio by averaging multiple displacement estimations.
Examples of elastograms are presented and averaging is demonstrated to allow the detection of smaller displacements by significantly increasing the quality of the elastograms. The criterion used to quantify the image quality is the nonuniformity level, which is always found improved when the proposed method is used.
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
Ophir, J., Cespedes, I., Ponnekanti, H., Yazdi, Y., Li, X.: Elastography: a quantitative method for imaging the elasticity of biological tissues. Ultrason. Imaging 13, 111–134 (1991)
Sandrin, L., Tanter, M., Catheline, S., Fink, M.: Shear modulus imaging with 2-D transient elastography. IEEE TUFFC 49(4), 426–435 (2002)
Bilgen, M., Insana, M.F.: Deformation models and correlation analysis in elastography. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 99(5), 3212–3224 (1996)
Pesavento, A., Perrey, C., Krueger, M., Ermert, H.: A time-efficient and accurate strain estimation concept for ultrasonic elastography using iterative phase zero estimation. IEEE TUFFC 46(5), 1057–1067 (1999)
O’Donnell, M., Skovoroda, A.R., Shapo, B.M., Emelianov, S.Y.: Internal displacement and strain imaging using ultrasonic speckle tracking. IEEE TUFFC 41(3), 314–325 (1994)
Lindop, J.E., Treece, G.M., Gee, A.H., Prager, R.W.: Phase-based ultrasonic deformation estimation. IEEE TUFFC 55(1), 94–111 (2008)
Cheng, J., Lu, J-y: Extended high-frame-rate imaging method with limited-diffraction beams. IEEE TUFFC 53(5), 880–899 (2006)
Montaldo, G., Tanter, M., Bercoff, J., Benech, N., Fink, M.: Coherent plane-wave compounding for very high frame rate ultrasonography and transient elastography. IEEE TUFFC 56(3), 489–506 (2009)
Ramalli, A., Basset, O., Cachard, C., Tortoli, P.: Quasi-static elastography based on high frame-rate imaging and frequency domain displacement estimation. In: International Ultrasonics Symposium 2010, San Diego, USA (2010)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
About this paper
Cite this paper
Ramalli, A., Boni, E., Basset, O., Cachard, C., Tortoli, P. (2012). High Frame-Rate Imaging Applied to Quasi-static Elastography. In: Nowicki, A., Litniewski, J., Kujawska, T. (eds) Acoustical Imaging. Acoustical Imaging, vol 31. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2619-2_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2619-2_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-2618-5
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-2619-2
eBook Packages: Physics and AstronomyPhysics and Astronomy (R0)