title: Assessing image quality in effective Poisson's ratio elastography and poroelastography: I.
abstract: The quality of strain estimates in elastography is typically quantified by several quality factors such as the elastographic signal-to-noise ratio, the elastographic contrast-to-noise ratio and the spatial axial and lateral resolutions. While theoretical and simulation works have led to established upper bounds of these image quality factors in axial strain elastography, the performance limitations of lateral strain elastography, effective Poisson's ratio elastography and poroelastography are still not well understood. In this paper, we investigate the theoretical upper bounds of image quality of effective Poisson's ratio elastography starting from an analysis of the performance limitations of axial strain and lateral strain elastography. In the companion paper, we extend our investigation to the theoretical upper bounds of image quality of poroelastography. In both these papers, we also analyse the application of techniques that can be used to improve the performance of these poroelastographic techniques under various experimental conditions.
authors.affiliation: The University of Texas Medical School, Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Imaging, Ultrasonics Laboratory, Houston, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Raffaella
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Righetti
authors.forename: Seshadri
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Srinivasan
authors.forename: Arun Thitai
authors.initials: AT
authors.lastname: Kumar
authors.forename: Jonathan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ophir
authors.forename: Thomas A
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Krouskop
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D003198:Computer Simulation; D004548:Elasticity; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods*; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D008954:Models, Biological; D016062:Porosity; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013314:Stress, Mechanical; D014463:Ultrasonography / Q000379:methods*