Phase aberration effects in elastography

In sonography, phase aberration plays a role in the corruption of sonograms . Phase aberration does not have a significant impact on elastography, if s tatistically similar phase errors are present in both the pre- and postcomp ression signals, However, if the phase errors are present in only one of th e pre- or postcompression signal pairs, the precision of the strain estimat ion process will be reduced. In some cases, increased phase errors may occu r only in the postcompression signal due to changes in the tissue structure with the applied compression. Phase-aberration effects increase with appli ed strain acid may be viewed as an image quality derating factor, much like frequency-dependent attenuation or undesired lateral tissue motion. In thi s paper, we present a theoretical and simulation study of the effects of ph ase aberration on the elastographic strain-estimation process, using the st rain filter approach. (C) 2001 World Federation for Ultrasound in Medicine & Biology.