Displacement Tracking Techniques in Ultrasound Elastography: From Cross-Correlation to Deep Learning

Ultrasound elastography is a non-invasive medical imaging technique that maps viscoelastic properties to characterize tissues and diseases. Elastography can be divided into two classes in a broad sense: strain elastography (SE), which relies on Hooke’s law to delineate strain as a surrogate for elasticity, and shear-wave elastography (SWE), which tracks the propagation of shear waves in tissues to estimate the elasticity. As tracking the displacement field in the temporal or spatial domain is an inevitable step of both SE and SWE, the success is contingent on the displacement estimation accuracy. Recent reviews mostly focused on clinical applications of elastography, disregarding advances in displacement tracking algorithms. Herein, we comprehensively review the recently proposed displacement estimation algorithms applied to both SE and SWE. In addition to cross-correlation, block-matching (
i.e
., window-based), model-based, energy-based, and deep learning-based tracking techniques, we review large and lateral displacement tracking, adaptive beamforming, data enhancement, and noise-suppression algorithms facilitating better displacement estimation. We also discuss the simulation models for displacement tracking validation, clinical translation and validation of displacement tracking methods, performance evaluation metrics, and publicly available codes and data for displacement tracking in elastography. Finally, we provide experiential opinions on different tracking algorithms, list the limitations of the current state of elastographic tracking, and comment on possible future research.