Experimental Evaluation of the Impact of Signal Decorrelation on Plane Wave versus Focused ARFI VoA Measurements

ARFI Variance of Acceleration (VoA) has been previously used in clinical applications to delineate atherosclerotic plaque morphology and detect subcutaneous hemorrhage. In silico models also demonstrated that behavior of the parameter is influenced by error in the displacement estimates, which are accentuated by decreasing SNR or correlation. This study experimentally demonstrates that in non-elastic materials, decreasing correlation, induced by a greater magnitude ARFI push, increases VoA when the material SNR is above 40-45 dB. This signal correlation dependent change is realizable with focused and PW tracking, potentially expanding the clinical utility of high framerate VoA analysis.