A Comparison Study of Bessel SWEI and Supersonic Shear Imaging: Energy and Contrast Evaluations

Acoustic radiation force (ARF) induced Shear wave elasticity imaging (SWEI) is a noninvasive method to characterize pathological tissues. Conventionally, ARF is generated by focused beam with limited depth of focus. Supersonic shear imaging (SSI) uses multiple push-beam foci to achieve larger depth of field (DoF) elastograms. Here, we propose a SWEI method based on Bessel apodized ARF to generate larger DoF with lower energy. As a result, Bessel elastogram in gel phantom shows 19% higher contrast-to-noise ration (CNR) and 95% lower energy than SSI. Furthermore, Bessel elastogram in porcine liver shows 61% higher signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and 56% lower energy than SSI.