title: Corrections to the displacement estimation based on analytic minimization of adaptive regularized cost functions for ultrasound elastography.
abstract: Ultrasound elastography has been widely applied in clinical diagnosis. To produce high-quality elastograms, displacement estimation is important to generate ne displacement map from the original ratio-frequency signals. Traditional displacement estimation methods are based on the local information of signals pair, such as cross-correlation method, phase zero estimation. However, the tissue movement is nonlocal during realistic elasticity process due to the compression coming from the surface. Recently, regularized cost functions have been broadly used in ultrasound elastography. In this paper, we tested the using of analytic minimization of adaptive regularized cost function, a combination of different regularized cost functions, to correct the displacement estimation calculated by cross-correlation method directly or by lateral displacement guidance. We have demonstrated that the proposed method exhibit obvious advantages in terms of imaging quality with higher levels of elastographic signal-to-noise ratio and elastographic contrast-to-noise ratio in the simulation and phantom experiments respectively.
authors.affiliation: College of Computer Science, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan, China School of Computer Science, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu, Sichuan, China.
authors.forename: Bo
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Peng
authors.affiliation: School of Computer Science, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu, Sichuan, China.
authors.forename: Junliang
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lai
authors.affiliation: School of Computer Science, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu, Sichuan, China.
authors.forename: Ling
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: College of Computer Science, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan, China.
authors.forename: Dong C
authors.initials: DC
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D016477:Artifacts; D054459:Elasticity Imaging Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods*; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted
keywords: Ultrasound elastography; adaptive regularized cost function; analytic minimization; displacement estimation