• Abderrahmane Ouared, Emmanuel Montagnon, and Guy Cloutier.
• Laboratory of Biorheology and Medical Ultrasonics, University of Montréal Hospital Research Center (CRCHUM), Montréal, QC, Canada. Institute of Biomedical Engineering, University of Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada.
• Phys Med Biol. 2015 Oct 21; 60 (20): 8161-85.

AbstractA method based on adaptive torsional shear waves (ATSW) is proposed to overcome the strong attenuation of shear waves generated by a radiation force in dynamic elastography. During the inward propagation of ATSW, the magnitude of displacements is enhanced due to the convergence of shear waves and constructive interferences. The proposed method consists in generating ATSW fields from the combination of quasi-plane shear wavefronts by considering a linear superposition of displacement maps. Adaptive torsional shear waves were experimentally generated in homogeneous and heterogeneous tissue mimicking phantoms, and compared to quasi-plane shear wave propagations. Results demonstrated that displacement magnitudes by ATSW could be up to 3 times higher than those obtained with quasi-plane shear waves, that the variability of shear wave speeds was reduced, and that the signal-to-noise ratio of displacements was improved. It was also observed that ATSW could cause mechanical inclusions to resonate in heterogeneous phantoms, which further increased the displacement contrast between the inclusion and the surrounding medium. This method opens a way for the development of new noninvasive tissue characterization strategies based on ATSW in the framework of our previously reported shear wave induced resonance elastography (SWIRE) method proposed for breast cancer diagnosis.

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