Ghosh, Susanta

Ultrasound transient elastography has emerged as a promising imaging modality for noninvasive evaluation of tissue mechanical properties. Most of the established techniques, however, rely on a pointwise measurement of the induced shear wave speed based on a localized planar wave propagation assumption. This assumption is not always true as most tissues exhibit heterogamous characteristics. Complex interaction of different geometries, boundary conditions, and tissue composition limit the ability of these techniques such that additional spatial-temporal filtering and signal truncations are required. These signal conditionings might lead to improvement in elasticity estimation for some cases (e.g. certain geometries, material properties) but the fact that they do not stem from a comprehensive framework can lead to unrealistic mechanical properties in more complex scenarios. We present a generalized framework based on inverse solution of the elasto-dynamic equations which can simultaneously solve for material properties and geometries without requiring any prior knowledge of the wave types. The method is based on a modified error in constitutive equation (MECE) without requiring additional filtering. We present the results of standard phantom studies based on acoustic radiation force excitation and fast ultrasound tracking where MECE technique successfully estimated the elastic moduli and geometry. [Work supported by NIH grant CA174723.]