Fine elasticity imaging utilizing the iterative RF-echo phase matching method.

To non-invasively quantify elasticity of soft tissue, we previously developed the iterative two-dimensional (2-D) rf-echo phase matching method for accurately measuring a 2-D displacement vector field generated in vivo in soft tissue during acquisition of two successive rf-echo data frames. We also developed a stable method for uniquely reconstructing a shear modulus distribution using strains derived from the measurement data. However, as in our measurement method a displacement is determined by using the phase characteristics of the finite local echo data as the index to iteratively search for the corresponding local data, change of the local phase characteristics due to tissue deformation deteriorates the accuracy of the determination. Thus, we improve the previous method such that, in principle, the displacement can be determined using an infinitesimal phase characteristics. That is, we incorporate an effective mechanism into the previous iterative phase matching scheme: the local size is made suitably smaller during the iterative phase matching. The demonstrated ability of measurement and reconstruction in simulation, and experiments on in vitro in pork rib and in vivo in breast tissue, shows this refinement allows not only better spatial resolution of the shear modulus image but also improved accuracy, and indicates that the improved method has a high potential to be applied for various soft tissues.