Abstract
Radiation-force-based elasticity imaging describes a group of techniques that use acoustic radiation force (ARF) to displace tissue to obtain qualitative or quantitative measurements of tissue properties. Because ARF-induced displacements are on the order of micrometers, tracking these displacements in vivo can be challenging. Previously, it has been shown that Bayesian-based estimation can overcome some of the limitations of a traditional displacement estimator such as normalized cross-correlation (NCC). In this work, we describe a Bayesian framework that combines a generalized Gaussian-Markov random field (GGMRF) prior with an automated method for selecting the prior's width. We then evaluate its performance in the context of tracking the micrometer-order displacements encountered in an ARF-based method such as ARF impulse (ARFI) imaging. The results show that bias, variance, and mean-square error (MSE) performance vary with prior shape and width, and that an almost one order-of-magnitude reduction in MSE can be achieved by the estimator at the automatically selected prior width. Lesion simulations show that the proposed estimator has a higher contrast-to-noise ratio but lower contrast than NCC, median-filtered NCC, and the previous Bayesian estimator, with a non-Gaussian prior shape having better lesion-edge resolution than a Gaussian prior. In vivo results from a cardiac, radio-frequency ablation ARFI imaging dataset show quantitative improvements in lesion contrast-to-noise ratio over NCC as well as the previous Bayesian estimator.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
More From: IEEE transactions on ultrasonics, ferroelectrics, and frequency control
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.