TY - JOUR
T1 - Improved Shear Wave Group Velocity Estimation Method Based on Spatiotemporal Peak and Thresholding Motion Search
AU - Amador Carrascal, Carolina
AU - Chen, Shigao
AU - Manduca, Armando
AU - Greenleaf, James F.
AU - Urban, Matthew W.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 IEEE.
PY - 2017/4
Y1 - 2017/4
N2 - Quantitative ultrasound elastography is increasingly being used in the assessment of chronic liver disease. Many studies have reported ranges of liver shear wave velocity values for healthy individuals and patients with different stages of liver fibrosis. Nonetheless, ongoing efforts exist to stabilize quantitative ultrasound elastography measurements by assessing factors that influence tissue shear wave velocity values, such as food intake, body mass index, ultrasound scanners, scanning protocols, and ultrasound image quality. Time-to-peak (TTP) methods have been routinely used to measure the shear wave velocity. However, there is still a need for methods that can provide robust shear wave velocity estimation in the presence of noisy motion data. The conventional TTP algorithm is limited to searching for the maximum motion in time profiles at different spatial locations. In this paper, two modified shear wave speed estimation algorithms are proposed. The first method searches for the maximum motion in both space and time [spatiotemporal peak (STP)]; the second method applies an amplitude filter [spatiotemporal thresholding (STTH)] to select points with motion amplitude higher than a threshold for shear wave group velocity estimation. The two proposed methods (STP and STTH) showed higher precision in shear wave velocity estimates compared with TTP in phantom. Moreover, in a cohort of 14 healthy subjects, STP and STTH methods improved both the shear wave velocity measurement precision and the success rate of the measurement compared with conventional TTP.
AB - Quantitative ultrasound elastography is increasingly being used in the assessment of chronic liver disease. Many studies have reported ranges of liver shear wave velocity values for healthy individuals and patients with different stages of liver fibrosis. Nonetheless, ongoing efforts exist to stabilize quantitative ultrasound elastography measurements by assessing factors that influence tissue shear wave velocity values, such as food intake, body mass index, ultrasound scanners, scanning protocols, and ultrasound image quality. Time-to-peak (TTP) methods have been routinely used to measure the shear wave velocity. However, there is still a need for methods that can provide robust shear wave velocity estimation in the presence of noisy motion data. The conventional TTP algorithm is limited to searching for the maximum motion in time profiles at different spatial locations. In this paper, two modified shear wave speed estimation algorithms are proposed. The first method searches for the maximum motion in both space and time [spatiotemporal peak (STP)]; the second method applies an amplitude filter [spatiotemporal thresholding (STTH)] to select points with motion amplitude higher than a threshold for shear wave group velocity estimation. The two proposed methods (STP and STTH) showed higher precision in shear wave velocity estimates compared with TTP in phantom. Moreover, in a cohort of 14 healthy subjects, STP and STTH methods improved both the shear wave velocity measurement precision and the success rate of the measurement compared with conventional TTP.
KW - Elastography
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85017174541&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85017174541&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/TUFFC.2017.2652143
DO - 10.1109/TUFFC.2017.2652143
M3 - Article
C2 - 28092532
AN - SCOPUS:85017174541
SN - 0885-3010
VL - 64
SP - 660
EP - 668
JO - IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control
JF - IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control
IS - 4
M1 - 7814321
ER -