Quantifying the Impact of Imaging Through Body Walls on Shear Wave Elasticity Measurements

Overview

Journal Ultrasound Med Biol

Specialty Radiology

Date 2022 Dec 23

PMID 36564217

Authors

Bofeng Zhang

Nick Bottenus

Felix Q Jin

Kathryn R Nightingale

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

In the context of ultrasonic hepatic shear wave elasticity imaging (SWEI), measurement success has been determined to increase when using elevated acoustic output pressures. As SWEI sequences consist of two distinct operations (pushing and tracking), acquisition failures could be attributed to (i) insufficient acoustic radiation force generation resulting in inadequate shear wave amplitude and/or (ii) distorted ultrasonic tissue motion tracking. In the study described here, an opposing window experimental setup that isolated body wall effects separately between the push and track SWEI operations was implemented. A commonly employed commercial track configuration was used, harmonic multiple-track-location SWEI. The effects of imaging through body walls on the pushing and tracking operations of SWEI as a function of mechanical index (MI), spanning 5 different push beam MIs and 10 track beam MIs, were independently assessed using porcine body walls. Shear wave speed yield was found to increase with both increasing push and track MI. Although not consistent across all samples, measurements in a subset of body walls were found to be signal limited during tracking and to increase yield by up to 35% when increasing electronic signal-to-noise ratio by increasing harmonic track transmit pressure.

References

Piccinino F, Sagnelli E, Pasquale G, Giusti G . Complications following percutaneous liver biopsy. A multicentre retrospective study on 68,276 biopsies. J Hepatol. 1986; 2(2):165-73. DOI: 10.1016/s0168-8278(86)80075-7. View

Kim H, Lee H, Cho J, Yang H . Quantitative comparison of transient elastography (TE), shear wave elastography (SWE) and liver biopsy results of patients with chronic liver disease. J Phys Ther Sci. 2015; 27(8):2465-8. PMC: 4563291. DOI: 10.1589/jpts.27.2465. View

Goodman Z . Grading and staging systems for inflammation and fibrosis in chronic liver diseases. J Hepatol. 2007; 47(4):598-607. DOI: 10.1016/j.jhep.2007.07.006. View

Joshi K, Mendler M, Gish R, Loomba R, Kuo A, Patton H . Hepatocellular carcinoma surveillance: a national survey of current practices in the USA. Dig Dis Sci. 2014; 59(12):3073-7. DOI: 10.1007/s10620-014-3256-6. View

Rockey D, Caldwell S, Goodman Z, Nelson R, Smith A . Liver biopsy. Hepatology. 2009; 49(3):1017-44. DOI: 10.1002/hep.22742. View

Klysik M, Garg S, Pokharel S, Meier J, Patel N, Garg K . Challenges of imaging for cancer in patients with diabetes and obesity. Diabetes Technol Ther. 2014; 16(4):266-74. DOI: 10.1089/dia.2014.0026. View

Nightingale K, Palmeri M, Nightingale R, Trahey G . On the feasibility of remote palpation using acoustic radiation force. J Acoust Soc Am. 2001; 110(1):625-34. DOI: 10.1121/1.1378344. View

Zhang B, Pinton G, Nightingale K . On the Relationship between Spatial Coherence and In Situ Pressure for Abdominal Imaging. Ultrasound Med Biol. 2021; 47(8):2310-2320. PMC: 8494065. DOI: 10.1016/j.ultrasmedbio.2021.03.008. View

Manning D, Afdhal N . Diagnosis and quantitation of fibrosis. Gastroenterology. 2008; 134(6):1670-81. DOI: 10.1053/j.gastro.2008.03.001. View

10.

Bamber J, Hill C . Ultrasonic attenuation and propagation speed in mammalian tissues as a function of temperature. Ultrasound Med Biol. 1979; 5(2):149-57. DOI: 10.1016/0301-5629(79)90083-8. View

11.

Carrascal C, Aristizabal S, Greenleaf J, Urban M . Phase Aberration and Attenuation Effects on Acoustic Radiation Force-Based Shear Wave Generation. IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control. 2016; 63(2):222-32. PMC: 4900905. DOI: 10.1109/TUFFC.2016.2515366. View

12.

Long W, Bottenus N, Trahey G . Lag-One Coherence as a Metric for Ultrasonic Image Quality. IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control. 2018; 65(10):1768-1780. PMC: 6378881. DOI: 10.1109/TUFFC.2018.2855653. View

13.

Bedossa P, Dargere D, Paradis V . Sampling variability of liver fibrosis in chronic hepatitis C. Hepatology. 2003; 38(6):1449-57. DOI: 10.1016/j.hep.2003.09.022. View

14.

Schmeltzer P, Talwalkar J . Noninvasive tools to assess hepatic fibrosis: ready for prime time?. Gastroenterol Clin North Am. 2011; 40(3):507-21. PMC: 3168982. DOI: 10.1016/j.gtc.2011.06.010. View

15.

Rouze N, Wang M, Palmeri M, Nightingale K . Robust estimation of time-of-flight shear wave speed using a radon sum transformation. IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control. 2010; 57(12):2662-70. PMC: 3412360. DOI: 10.1109/TUFFC.2010.1740. View

16.

Chang Y, Murphy K, Yackzan D, Thomas S, Kay D, Davenport D . Abdominal Wall Thickness is a Predictor for Surgical Site Infections in Patients Undergoing Colorectal Operations. Am Surg. 2020; 87(7):1155-1162. DOI: 10.1177/0003134820956932. View

17.

Deng Y, Palmeri M, Rouze N, Rosenzweig S, Abdelmalek M, Nightingale K . Analyzing the Impact of Increasing Mechanical Index and Energy Deposition on Shear Wave Speed Reconstruction in Human Liver. Ultrasound Med Biol. 2015; 41(7):1948-57. PMC: 4461469. DOI: 10.1016/j.ultrasmedbio.2015.02.019. View

18.

Wear K, Gammell P, Maruvada S, Liu Y, Harris G . Improved measurement of acoustic output using complex deconvolution of hydrophone sensitivity. IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control. 2014; 61(1):62-75. PMC: 6931379. DOI: 10.1109/TUFFC.2014.6689776. View

19.

Wang M, Palmeri M, Guy C, Yang L, Hedlund L, Diehl A . In vivo quantification of liver stiffness in a rat model of hepatic fibrosis with acoustic radiation force. Ultrasound Med Biol. 2009; 35(10):1709-21. PMC: 2752497. DOI: 10.1016/j.ultrasmedbio.2009.04.019. View

20.

Virmani J, Kumar V, Kalra N, Khandelwal N . Characterization of primary and secondary malignant liver lesions from B-mode ultrasound. J Digit Imaging. 2013; 26(6):1058-70. PMC: 3824916. DOI: 10.1007/s10278-013-9578-7. View