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

This paper presents a comparison between block matching and elastic registration for the estimation of cardiac deformation and strain from 3D ultrasound. The comparison study exploits a new evaluation pipeline recently developed by the authors. The pipeline generates synthetic sequences that are extremely similar to real ultrasound recording while the synthetic cardiac motion is fully controlled by an electro-mechanical model of the heart. Hereto, five synthetic sequences were generated corresponding to one healthy heart and four ischemic ones. Elastic registration returned both the smaller tracking errors and the most robust strain estimates. Although with limitations, this study brings further evidence that the new technique might be ready for extensive clinical testing.