Adaptive motion estimation in acoustic radiation force imaging

[0019] Provides adaptive physiological motion and transducer motion estimation in Acoustic Radiation Force Impulse or Imaging (ARFI) applications. Axial and lateral components of physiological and / or transducer motion are adaptively estimated and corrected. Multiple ARFI excitation pulses are used to isolate physiological and transducer displacements from ARFI-induced tissue displacements. In one embodiment, the signal pattern is generated multiple times and used to detect background (physiological) motion. ARFI excitation is used to generate tissue deformation as a signal pattern. Physiological motion is filtered out in shear wave velocity or other ARFI imaging.

[0020] figure 1 A method for acoustic radiation force ultrasound imaging is shown. Typically, multiple push pulses are emitted and a corresponding multiple displacement profiles are measured for position. An axial component of physiological motion can be estimated from the difference between the displacement pr...