In Vivo Estimation of Flexor Digitorum Superficialis Tendon Displacement with Speckle Tracking on 2-D Ultrasound Images Using Laplacian, Gaussian and Rayleigh Techniques

Which shoulder motions cause subacromial impingement? Evaluating the vertical displacement and peak strain of the coracoacromial ligament by ultrasound speckle tracking imaging

“…1,9,19 Although earlier studies focused on tracking the cardiac organs or blood flow, speckle tracking studies have become widely used to estimate the displacement and strain of tendons or muscles. 12,13,20,22 Stegman et al demonstrated the efficacy and accuracy of 2D STE in estimating the displacement of the flexor digitorum superficialis (FDS) tendon. 22 They assessed the displacement of the FDS tendon using 2D STE at wrist level while a video microscope simultaneously imaged the exposed FDS tendon as a reference for validation during open carpal tunnel surgeries.…”

“…12,13,20,22 Stegman et al demonstrated the efficacy and accuracy of 2D STE in estimating the displacement of the flexor digitorum superficialis (FDS) tendon. 22 They assessed the displacement of the FDS tendon using 2D STE at wrist level while a video microscope simultaneously imaged the exposed FDS tendon as a reference for validation during open carpal tunnel surgeries. They concluded that the error rate of 2D STE was generally within 5%, and this technique may have applications in clinical tendon assessment.…”

Application of a novel Kalman filter based block matching method to ultrasound images for hand tendon displacement estimation

“…The performances of all results were assessed using previously described error analysis formulas. 15 The total displacement of the motor was used as a reference. The total displacement relative error (D error ) was computed as follows:…”

“…Researchers have recently identified ways to implement a block-matching technique for estimating tendon displacement by tracking the motion of the speckles in sequences of ultrasound images. 14,15 The most recent investigations of speckle tracking in ultrasound image sequences have focused on either the development of new similarity measures that are more suitable for the use with compressed ultrasound images [e.g., Fisher-Tippett (FT) similarity measure] 15 or using different searching strategies for the block-matching step (e.g., sub-multikernels) 14 to further improve the accuracy of the estimated displacement vector. Notwithstanding the differences mentioned above, all of the latest methods have used a stationary region of interest (ROI)-referred to as a gating technique-for tracking tendon motion, since otherwise the region of the tendon being tracked may move outside of the image window.…”

“…In this technique, the reference template is always at the same location and is updated when the frames are incremented, which dramatically reduces the occurrence of compounding errors. 14,15 However, the abovementioned methods are still highly reliant on empirical parameter settings for different image conditions, which means that a sudden change in the quality of a particular ultrasound image can readily alter the estimation results. Moreover, patients with metacarpal fractures usually exhibit EDC deformation due to scarring and bone fracture, and swelling above the tendon may reflect more ultrasound echoes than other areas, thereby reducing the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in that specific area.…”