Robust cardiac motion estimation using ultrafast ultrasound data: a low-rank topology-preserving approach

• Published in: Physics in medicine & biology Vol. 62; no. 12; pp. 4831 - 4851
• Main Authors: Aviles, Angelica I, Widlak, Thomas, Casals, Alicia, Nillesen, Maartje M, Ammari, Habib
• Format: Journal Article Publication
• Language: English
• Published: England IOP Publishing 21.06.2017
• Subjects: Algorithms; Cardiac analysis; Cor; Diagnosis, Ultrasonic; Diagnòstic ultrasònic; Enginyeria biomèdica; Heart; Heart - diagnostic imaging; Heart - physiology; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; Imaging; Imatges; Low-rank representation; Motion estimation; Movement; Time Factors; Topology preservation; Ultrafast ultrasound; Ultrasonography; Àrees temàtiques de la UPC
• ISSN: 0031-9155; 1361-6560
• DOI: 10.1088/1361-6560/aa6914

Cardiac motion estimation is an important diagnostic tool for detecting heart diseases and it has been explored with modalities such as MRI and conventional ultrasound (US) sequences. US cardiac motion estimation still presents challenges because of complex motion patterns and the presence of noise. In this work, we propose a novel approach to estimate cardiac motion using ultrafast ultrasound data. Our solution is based on a variational formulation characterized by the L2-regularized class. Displacement is represented by a lattice of b-splines and we ensure robustness, in the sense of eliminating outliers, by applying a maximum likelihood type estimator. While this is an important part of our solution, the main object of this work is to combine low-rank data representation with topology preservation. Low-rank data representation (achieved by finding the k-dominant singular values of a Casorati matrix arranged from the data sequence) speeds up the global solution and achieves noise reduction. On the other hand, topology preservation (achieved by monitoring the Jacobian determinant) allows one to radically rule out distortions while carefully controlling the size of allowed expansions and contractions. Our variational approach is carried out on a realistic dataset as well as on a simulated one. We demonstrate how our proposed variational solution deals with complex deformations through careful numerical experiments. The low-rank constraint speeds up the convergence of the optimization problem while topology preservation ensures a more accurate displacement. Beyond cardiac motion estimation, our approach is promising for the analysis of other organs that exhibit motion.