Method to estimate the deviation from ideal uniaxial compression during freehand elastography. 2015

Rongmin Xia, and Arun K Thittai
Ultrasonics Laboratory, Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Imaging, The University of Texas Medical School, Houston, TX, USA.

Quasi-static ultrasound elastography was introduced in the early 1990s to provide a way to visualize the mechanical properties of target tissue. Most commonly, only the axial strain is imaged and referred to as an Axial Strain Elastogram (ASE) or elastogram for simplicity. It has been shown that one can image the axial-shear strain distributions as well in addition to ASE. The image of the axial-shear strain is referred to as an axial-shear strain elastogram (ASSE). It has also been shown that the presence or absence of non-zero axial-shear strain values inside the inclusion (referred to as fill-in) along with contrasting margin at its boundary may serve as a potential feature from ASSE that can aid in non-invasive breast lesion classification. However, during freehand elastography, deviations from uniaxial compression often occur typically appearing in several of the frames of a cine-loop obtained during compression. It was shown recently that accounting for such deviations would be important for reliable interpretation of the "fill-in" observed in ASSE. In this article, we describe a method to estimate the angle of iso-displacement contour at a given depth and use this as a measure to quantify the deviation from the desired uniaxial compression during freehand elastography. We validate the estimated angle obtained from the axial-displacement map against the designed values in simulation and tissue-mimicking phantom experiments. The potential of the angle estimate to detect unreliable ASSE frames among the freehand-acquired data cine-loop is demonstrated using example cases of in vivo breast lesion data. Based on the results, we conclude that the angle of the iso-displacement contour from the axial-displacement map can be used as a metric to qualify an ASSE frame as reliable to interpret or not. Importantly, this metric can be obtained in real time and thus can provide operator feedback to guide and improve in vivo freehand elastography data acquisition quality.

UI MeSH Term Description Entries
D007089 Image Enhancement Improvement of the quality of a picture by various techniques, including computer processing, digital filtering, echocardiographic techniques, light and ultrastructural MICROSCOPY, fluorescence spectrometry and microscopy, scintigraphy, and in vitro image processing at the molecular level. Image Quality Enhancement,Enhancement, Image,Enhancement, Image Quality,Enhancements, Image,Enhancements, Image Quality,Image Enhancements,Image Quality Enhancements,Quality Enhancement, Image,Quality Enhancements, Image
D005260 Female Females
D006801 Humans Members of the species Homo sapiens. Homo sapiens,Man (Taxonomy),Human,Man, Modern,Modern Man
D014159 Transducers Any device or element which converts an input signal into an output signal of a different form. Examples include the microphone, phonographic pickup, loudspeaker, barometer, photoelectric cell, automobile horn, doorbell, and underwater sound transducer. (McGraw Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms, 4th ed) Transducer
D016217 Ultrasonography, Mammary Use of ultrasound for imaging the breast. The most frequent application is the diagnosis of neoplasms of the female breast. Mammography, Ultrasonic,Breast Ultrasonography,Mammary Ultrasonography,Mammography, Ultrasound,Ultrasonic Mammography,Ultrasonography, Breast,Ultrasound Mammography,Breast Ultrasonographies,Mammary Ultrasonographies,Mammographies, Ultrasonic,Mammographies, Ultrasound,Ultrasonic Mammographies,Ultrasonographies, Breast,Ultrasonographies, Mammary,Ultrasound Mammographies
D054459 Elasticity Imaging Techniques Non-invasive imaging methods based on the mechanical response of an object to a vibrational or impulsive force. It is used for determining the viscoelastic properties of tissue, and thereby differentiating soft from hard inclusions in tissue such as microcalcifications, and some cancer lesions. Most techniques use ultrasound to create the images - eliciting the response with an ultrasonic radiation force and/or recording displacements of the tissue by Doppler ultrasonography. ARFI Imaging,Acoustic Radiation Force Impulse Imaging,Elastograms,Elastography,Magnetic Resonance Elastography,Sonoelastography,Tissue Elasticity Imaging,Vibro-Acoustography,ARFI Imagings,Elasticity Imaging Technique,Elasticity Imaging, Tissue,Elasticity Imagings, Tissue,Elastogram,Elastographies,Elastographies, Magnetic Resonance,Elastography, Magnetic Resonance,Imaging Technique, Elasticity,Imaging Techniques, Elasticity,Imaging, ARFI,Imaging, Tissue Elasticity,Imagings, ARFI,Imagings, Tissue Elasticity,Magnetic Resonance Elastographies,Resonance Elastographies, Magnetic,Resonance Elastography, Magnetic,Sonoelastographies,Technique, Elasticity Imaging,Techniques, Elasticity Imaging,Tissue Elasticity Imagings,Vibro Acoustography,Vibro-Acoustographies

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