The estimation of elasticity and viscosity of soft tissues in vitro using the data of remote acoustic palpation.

The presented study revealed the significant dependence of displacement magnitude and strain relaxation on phantom elasticity and viscosity. It has been shown that simultaneous analysis of temporal behavior and magnitude of shear strain induced by the radiation force of focused ultrasonic beam gives the necessary data for quantitative estimation of tissue shear modulus because of the known functional dependencies of displacement on local viscosity and elasticity. As a result, the simplest calibration procedure of acoustic radiation force-based methods is performed and algorithm for separate reconstruction of tissue elasticity and viscosity is proposed. These findings were tested, in particular, using the data obtained for specially prepared phantoms containing calf liver and muscle tissue in vitro. The observed complex character of shear strain relaxation and noise in some tissue phantoms and tissues in vitro reduces the preciseness of viscoelastic properties estimation.