Evaluation of visualization of the prostate gland in vibro-elastography images.

In this paper, vibro-elastography (VE), an ultrasound-based method that creates images of tissue viscoelasticity contrast, is evaluated as an imaging modality to visualize and segment the prostate. We report a clinical study to characterize the visibility of the prostate in VE images and the ability to detect the boundary of the gland. Measures for contrast, edge strength characterized by gradient and statistical intensity change at the edge, and the continuity of the edges are proposed and computed for VE and B-mode ultrasound images. Furthermore, using MRI as the gold standard, we compare the error in the computation of the volume of the gland from VE and B-mode images. The results demonstrate that VE images are superior to B-mode images in terms of contrast, with an approximately six fold improvement in contrast-to-noise ratio, and in terms of edge strength, with an approximately two fold improvement in the gradient in the direction normal to the edge. The computed volumes show that the VE images provide an accurate 3D visualization of the prostate with volume errors that are slightly lower than errors computed based on B-mode images. The total gland volume error is 8.8±2.5% for VE vs. MRI and 10.3±4.6% for B-mode vs. MRI, and the total gland volume difference is -4.6±11.1% for VE vs. MRI and -4.1±17.1% for B-mode vs. MRI, averaged over nine patients and three observers. Our results show that viscoelastic mapping of the prostate region using VE images can play an important role in improving the anatomic visualization of the prostate and has the potential of becoming an integral component of interventional procedures such as brachytherapy.