Elastic registration vs. block matching for quantification of cardiac function with 3D ultrasound: initial results of a direct comparison in silico based on a new evaluation pipeline

摘要

This paper presents a comparison between blockmatching and elastic registration for the estimation of cardiacdeformation and strain from 3D ultrasound. The comparisonstudy exploits a new evaluation pipeline recently developed bythe authors. The pipeline generates synthetic sequences that areextremely similar to real ultrasound recording while the syntheticcardiac motion is fully controlled by an electro-mechanical modelof the heart. Hereto, five synthetic sequences were generatedcorresponding to one healthy heart and four ischemic ones. Elasticregistration returned both the smaller tracking errors and themost robust strain estimates. Although with limitations, this studybrings further evidence that the new technique might be readyfor extensive clinical testing