Frame Fusion Imaging Based on Wavelet Transform Filtering in Ultrasound Elastography

The shear wave velocity estimation based on ultrasonic radiation force is the core technology of shear wave elastography. Reconstruction of shear wave velocity images of small size inclusions and reasonable removal of noise generated during high frequency shear wave acquisition are both worthy challenges in elastography. We propose a frame fusion imaging method based on wavelet transform filtering (WT-FFI) to improve such problems. The shear wave transmission video is obtained by frame-frequency compositing and processed by wavelet variation to obtain the shear wave velocity image. The theoretical analyses and comparative experimental results show that the WT-FFI method can effectively improve the lateral resolution of the shear wave, recover the boundaries of the inclusions, and improve the accuracy of the velocity estimation due to the obvious advantage of the WT-FFI method in the resolution of the shear wave reconstruction. The experimental results show that the method, better restores the shape of the elastic inclusions, and improves the quality of the velocity reconstruction image by frame-frequency fusion obtained with higher lateral resolution.