Enhancing Shear Wave Propagation Analysis in Tissue with Directional Filtering of Reflected Waves

Shear wave elastography (SWE) is a rapidly developing imaging technique that enables disease diagnosis by estimating tissue elasticity and viscosity (collectively referred to as CSM). SWE relies on measuring the velocity of shear waves propagating through the tissue. This paper proposes improvements to a directional filter for removing the impact of reflected noise on shear wave propagation. Firstly, the measured velocity signal (a combination of incident and reflected waves) was transformed using a discrete Fourier transform and then multiplied by a normalized directional filter mask. In the next step, signal processing techniques were applied to improve the quality of filtering and eliminate undesired components. Subsequently, the processed signal was inverse discrete Fourier transformed. The obtained signal after this transformation was the filtered velocity of the shear wave. The results of the simulation demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed solution.