Reconstruction of shear wave speed in tissue-mimicking phantoms from aliased pulse-echo imaging of high-frequency wavefields.

ABSTRACT

Quantitative elasticity estimation in medical and industrial applications may benefit from advancements in reconstruction of shear wave speed with enhanced resolution. Here, shear wave speed is reconstructed from pulse-echo ultrasound imaging of elastic waves induced by high-frequency (>400 Hz), time-harmonic mechanical excitation. Particle displacement in shear wavefields is mapped from measured interframe phase differences with compensation for timing of multiple scan lines, then processed by spatial Fourier analysis to estimate the predominant wave speed and analyzed by algebraic wavefield inversion to reconstruct wave speed maps. Reconstructions of shear wave speed from simulated wavefields illustrate the accuracy and spatial resolution available with both methods, as functions of signal-to-noise ratio and sizes of windows used for Fourier analysis or wavefield smoothing. The methods are applied to shear wavefields with frequencies up to six times the Nyquist rate, thus extending the frequency range measurable by a given imaging system. Wave speed measurements in tissue-mimicking phantoms are compared with supersonic shear imaging and mechanical tensile testing, demonstrating feasibility of the wavefield measurement and wave speed reconstruction methods employed.