The Effect of Different Coherence-Based Beamforming Techniques on the Accuracy of High Frame Rate Speckle Tracking Echocardiography

Although high frame rate (HFR) imaging could be a promising technique for a better assessment of myocardial function, the higher temporal resolution comes with decreased image quality, which affects the accuracy of speckle tracking echocardiography (STE). Since several adaptive beamforming algorithms have already been proposed to improve image quality, the aim of this study was to assess to what extent this impacts the accuracy of HFR STE. Simulated datasets were used to compare 7 coherence-based beamforming schemes. The STE results were similar for different beamformers with root mean square errors between 0.36 and 0.50%. Next, in vivo apical 4-chamber views were recorded from 3 healthy volunteers using the same beamforming schemes. The related strain curves were similar for the different beamforming methods and the end-systolic values showed no significant difference among beamformers and volunteers. In conclusion, our findings suggest that the choice of beamforming method does not significantly affect HFR STE in a clinical setting.