Ultrasound Elasticity Imaging Based Multilevel Estimation Using Radiofrequency Data

Abstract

An ultrasound elastography introduced to differentiate hard tumor inclusion embedded in soft tissue background based on similarity measurement of before and after deformation. In this study, freehand elastography has considered to localize hard inclusion embedded in soft tissue of phantom breast, where deformation generated by applying gentile compression using probe physical surface of ultrasound machine. Radiofrequency data of before and after deformation acquired and then processed off-line. A non-ability of refinement operation to regularize displacement estimation outliers at correlation window length of 2λ is addressed, where a multilevel processing algorithm has proposed to reinforce refinement operation by producing smooth elastography. In the first level of the processing, displacement field has estimated at correlation window length of 3λ, where global stretching as re-correlation operation and refinement operation as spatial regulation are included. While at second level, production of displacement estimation outliers at correlation window length of 2λ are regularized based on replacement of estimated cells with that interpolated one at first level. Results show an ability of multilevel algorithm to cope the issues that encountered previously proposed algorithm of refinement on estimation outlier free displacement field at an axial resolution of 2λ, and produces differential strain field.