Measurement of Elastic Properties of Tissue by Shear Wave Propagation Generated by Acoustic Radiation Force

Acoustic radiation force (ARF) imaging has been developed as a novel elastography technology to diagnose hepatic disease and breast cancer. The accuracy of shear wave speed estimation, which is one of the applications of ARF elastography, is studied. The Young's moduli of pig liver and foie gras samples estimated from the shear wave speed were compared with those measured the static Young's modulus measurement. The difference in the two methods was 8%. Distance attenuation characteristics of the shear wave were also studied using finite element method (FEM) analysis. We found that the differences in the axial and lateral beam widths in pressure and ARF are 16 and 9% at F-number=0.9. We studied the relationship between two branch points in distance attenuation characteristics and the shape of ARF. We found that the maximum measurable length to estimate shear wave speed for one ARF excitation was 8 mm.