A deconvolution filter for improvement of time-delay estimation in elastography

In elastography, tissue under investigation is compressed, and the resulting strain is estimated from the gradient of displacement estimates. Therefore, it is important to accurately estimate the displacements (time-delay) for good quality elastograms. A principal source of error in time-delay estimation in elastography is the decorrelation of the echo signal due to tissue compression (decorrelation noise). Temporal stretching of the postcompression signals has been shown to reduce the decorrelation noise at small strains. In this article, we present a deconvolution filter that reduces the decorrelation even further when applied in conjunction with signal stretching. The performance of the proposed filter is evaluated using simulated data.