Imaging the Mechanical Properties of Soft Tissue/L'imagerie des caractéristiques mécaniques des tissus mous.

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Elastography is a relatively new technology for imaging the elastic property distribution within soft tissues. Elastography offers the ability to visualize elastic contrast, 10-100X greater than x-ray contrast for breast cancer, as well complex properties such as tissue attenuation, uniquely able to diagnose liver fibrosis. As no direct method for imaging internal elasticity values exists, elastography relies on a three step approach: first, mechanical actuation (e.g. vibration) is applied to the tissue, generating a strain field that is dependent upon the internal elastic structure; second, methods such as digital, ultrasound or magnetic resonance imaging are used to capture this strain pattern; finally, the elastic property image is reconstructed from the measured strain field by means of a mathematical inverse problem.