Acoustic Radiation Force Elasticity Imaging: Physics, Implementation and Clinical Applications
Instructor(s) and Affiliation
Mark L. Palmeri, M.D., Ph.D.
Associate Research Professor
Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Anesthesiology
Pratt School of Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC USA
Short biography of instructor(s)
Mark L. Palmeri received his B.S. degree in Biomedical and Electrical Engineering from Duke University, Durham, NC, in 2000. He was a James B. Duke graduate fellow and received his Ph.D. degree in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University in 2005 and his M.D. degree from the Duke University School of Medicine in 2007. He is currently an Associate Research Professor in Biomedical Engineering and Anesthesiology at Duke University. He is an Associate Editor for Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology and IEEE Transactions in Medical Imaging. He serves as a sub-committee co-chair for the RSNA Quantitative Imaging Biomarker Alliance (QIBA) ultrasound shear wave speed imaging committee. His research interests include acoustic radiation force shear wave elasticity imaging in the liver, prostate and skin, finite element analysis, medical image processing and medical instrumentation design.
Abstract
Non-invasive, ultrasonic elasticity imaging systems have been developed and commercialized that can characterize the viscoelastic properties of tissues. These viscoelastic properties provide a novel mechanism to delineate tissue anatomy and characterize disease states, with popular clinical applications including staging liver fibrosis and characterizing breast lesions. This short course will provide an overview of the viscoelastic material descriptions of soft tissues, including higher-order properties such as nonlinearity and anisotropy. The physics of acoustic radiation force generation will be reviewed, along with experimental methods for generating acoustic radiation force on research scanners. Displacement estimation signal processing methods and shear wave speed reconstruction algorithms will be reviewed. Efforts to standardize commercial elasticity imaging systems through the RSNA Quantitative Imaging Biomarker Alliance will be discussed, along with current and future clinical applications of elasticity imaging systems.