Reconstruction of Elasticity Estimates in Shear Wave Elastography through Relaxed Frame Rate Acquisition Combined with Radial Basis Function Interpolation

Over the past decades, ultrasound elasticity imaging has become indispensable for assessing tissue stiffness. Achieving a high frame rate acquisition in shear wave elastography (SWE) is critical for accurately capturing the transient propagation of shear waves. However, attaining exceptionally high frame rates presents challenges. This study aims to mitigate the need for such high frame rates in precise SWE assessments. To accomplish this, we propose a lower frame rate acquisition coupled with radial basis function (RBF) interpolation. We applied this technique to an experimental dataset and found that it performed precisely in estimating shear wave speed (gSWS). Specifically, the structural similarity index (SSIM) between the acoustic radiation force (ARF) reconstructed images of the proposed low frame rate and original high frame rate strategy exceeds 96%, and even at a down-sampling (DS) rate of 4, the reconstruction errors in gSWS, phase velocity, and dispersion remain below 5%.