Quantitative breast elastography from B-mode images

Author: Nicolas Benech
Summary: In this work, we investigate, the feasibility of quantifying the Young's modulus of breast tissue from the auto-correlation of a diffuse acoustic field computed from a sequence of B-mode images acquired through conventional ultrasound scanners. Inspired in the seismological approach of retrieving the Green's function by cross-correlation of diffuse fields, we obtained a quantitative expression that relates the local shear modulus of soft tissue with the auto-correlation of the displacement field generated by the presence of an acoustic diffuse field in the medium. In addition, we designed a mechanical prototype device adaptable to the breast anatomy, in order to create the necessary conditions in terms of diffuse field generation. The displacement field was measured from a sequence of B-mode images acquired at standard frame rates (30 – 50 Hz) with standard ultrasound scanners (Toshiba Nemio NX and SIUI Apogee 3800). This method was tested in a breast tissue mimicking phantom. We also performed an in-vivo measurement as a preliminary validation. In this last case, the reconstructed images are in accordance with the patient known pathology (BI-RADS 5, Infiltrating Ductal Carcinoma, Score 6). The pathological breast shows a heterogeneous elasticity map with a mean Young’s modulus of 98.1 ± 6.3 KPa, while the normal breast presents a homogeneous map with a mean Young’s modulus of 24.7 ± 8.1 KPa.
Time:11:00
Place:Salle de conférence de l'INSERM, LabTAU u1032 151 Cours Abert Thomas, LYON 03