Tracking arterial wall motion in a 2D+t volume

The aim of this study is to propose a motion tracking framework dedicated to estimate the trajectory of the common carotid artery wall in B-mode ultrasound sequences. As the image quality of routinely acquired scans is often degraded by a number of factors, accurate estimation of the tissues motion is a challenging task. To address this issue, the main feature of our method is the research of an optimal a posteriori solution, which is computed using a dynamic programming scheme once all frames have been processed. Applied in vivo on 15 healthy volunteers, our method showed an overall good tracking performance, with an average absolute tracking error of 104 ± 127 μm and 29 ± 57 μm, in the longitudinal and radial directions, respectively. This work has potential to improve motion estimation in ultrasound imaging, and could contribute to provide more reliable information about vascular health in a clinical setting.