A Spline Interpolation-based Data Reconstruction Technique for Estimation of Strain Time Constant in Ultrasound Poroelastography.

A Spline Interpolation-based Data Reconstruction Technique for Estimation of Strain Time Constant in Ultrasound Poroelastography. Ultrason Imaging. 2020 Jan;42(1):5-14 Authors: Islam MT, Righetti R Abstract Ultrasound poroelastography is a cost-effective and noninvasive imaging technique, which can be used to reconstruct mechanical parameters of tissues such as Young's modulus, Poisson's ratio, interstitial permeability, and vascular permeability. To estimate interstitial permeability and vascular permeability using poroelastography, accurate estimation of the strain time constant (TC) is required. This can be a challenging task due to the nonlinearity of the exponential strain curve and noise affecting the experimental data. Due to motion artifacts caused by the sonographer, animal/patient, and/or the environment, noise affecting some strain frames can be significantly higher than the strain signal. If these frames are used for the computation of the strain TC, the resulting TC estimate can be highly inaccurate, which, in turn, can cause high errors in the reconstructed mechanical parameters. In this paper, we introduce a cubic spline-based interpolation method, which allows to use only good quality strain frames (i.e., frames with sufficiently high signal-to-noise ratio [SNR]) to estimate the strain TC. Using finite element simulations, we demonstrate that the proposed interpolation method can improve the estimation accuracy of the...
Source: Ultrasonic Imaging - Category: Radiology Tags: Ultrason Imaging Source Type: research