Tissue stiffness imaging method using temporal variation of ultrasound speckle pattern.
Applying vibration to a medium makes it vibrate. The resulting change in scatterer distribution inside the medium due to applied vibration changes the speckle pattern of ultrasound images. In this case, scatterers in a hard medium experience small displacements, and those in a soft medium experience large displacements. As a result, the amount of speckle pattern brightness change in ultrasound images is related to the tissue stiffness. Using this dependency, a two-dimensional profile of relative tissue stiffness can be constructed qualitatively at the display pixel resolution by determining at each pixel the standard deviation and/or the difference between minimum and maximum values over a certain number of consecutive B-mode images. Experiments with phantoms show that the softer the tissue, the larger the standard deviation. The proposed imaging modality is a simple yet practical method of resolving hard cysts surrounded by soft background in a phantom using B-mode frame data only.
Mok-Kun
MK
Jeong
Sung-Jae
SJ
Kwon
D000465:Algorithms; D003238:Connective Tissue / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000502:physiology*; D004548:Elasticity; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods*; D009038:Motion; D010363:Pattern Recognition, Automated; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D011312:Pressure; D012542:Scattering, Radiation; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D014463:Ultrasonography / Q000379:methods