Shear modulus reconstruction by ultrasonically measured strain ratio

摘要

In addition to a description of our three previously developed one-dimensional (1D) methods from the viewpoint of shear modulus reconstruction using the strain ratio, two new methods for stabilizing the 1D methods are described, together with their limitations. As confirmed using human in vivo breast tissues, method 1 for evaluating the strain ratio itself is useful when the measurement accuracy of the strain distribution is high. However, because tissues having high shear moduli, such as scirrhous carcinoma, often form singular points/regions, both methods 2 and 3 using the strain ratio (initial estimate) and a regularization method are effective for realizing a unique, stable, useful shear modulus reconstruction. Because method 3 carries out implicit integration only at singular points/regions, whereas method 2 carries out implicit integration throughout the region of interest (ROI), the smaller number of singular points enables more rapid shear modulus reconstruction by method 3 than by method 2. Like method 1, method 3 is also useful when the measurement accuracy of the strain distribution is high. However, when evaluating strain distribution in an ROI with a high spatial resolution to obtain a shear modulus reconstruction having a high spatial resolution, shear modulus reconstructions obtained by methods 1, 2, and 3 often become laterally unstable due to the instability and low accuracy of the strains in the reference regions (reference strains), i.e., regularization in methods 2 and 3 cannot reduce the instability in the initial estimate.