(Sunday, 7/12/2020) [Eastern Time (GMT-4)]
Room: AAPM ePoster Library
Purpose: In this work we investigate, from a physics point of view, the feasibility of quantifying the Young’s modulus of breast tissue from the autocorrelation of a diffuse acoustic field computed from a sequence of B-mode images acquired through conventional ultrasound scanners.
Methods: Inspired in the seismological approach of retrieving the Green’s function by crosscorrelation of diffuse fields, we obtained a quantitative expression that relates the local shear modulus of soft tissue to the autocorrelation of the displacement field generated by the presence of a diffuse field in the medium. In addition, we designed a mechanical prototype device adaptable to the breast anatomy, in order to create the necessary conditions in terms of diffuse field generation. The displacement field was measured from a sequence of B-mode images acquired at standard frame rates (30–50 Hz) with conventional ultrasound equipment. This method was tested in a breast tissue mimicking phantom. We also performed an in vivo measurement as a preliminary validation with a voluntary patient who previously provided informed written consent.
Results: In the reconstructed Young’s modulus maps the inclusions were identified and the obtained
quantitative results for an inclusion and the background of the phantom are in good agreement with the
values reported by the phantom’s manufacturer. In the case of the in vivo measurement, the obtained images are in accordance with the patient known pathology.
Conclusion: We successfully reconstructed the Young’s modulus map of the breast tissue mimicking
phantom and of a real breast tumor using ultrasound images acquired with conventional scanners.
The results obtained in this work support that our technique can be developed as a medical tool to
obtain Young’s modulus maps of breast tissue.
Keywords
Breast, Ultrasonics, Quantitative Imaging
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