Shear Wave Elastography with High Precision and Relaxed Frame Rate Utilizing 2D Radial Basis Function Reconstruction

In the last decade, ultrasound elasticity imaging has advanced as a technique for measuring tissue stiffness. However, achieving an exceptionally high frame rate in shear wave elastography (SWE) is crucial for accurately assessing tissue stiffness and capturing the brief propagation of shear waves. Therefore, this study aims to address this challenge and reduce the necessary frame rate for high-precision SWE. In this study, after generating acoustic radiation force (ARF) by a push pulse, we propose adopting a relaxed frame rate determined by a targeted relaxation factor (RxF). Next, we propose a post-processing technique based on spatio-temporal interpolation (IP) to compensate for the temporal information lost due to the low frame rate acquisition. We utilize radial basis functions (RBF) to perform the reconstruction. The experimental study of the results shows that we can reduce the frame rate requirement of SWE imaging by a factor of 4 while achieving the close elasticity estimates as the original high frame rate.