Patent ID: 7736315
Filing Date: 2010-06-15
Classification: A61B

Abstract:
1. An ultrasonic acoustoelastography system comprising: an ultrasonic transducer system adapted to provide a set of echo signals from a plurality of voxels in a region of interest of a material, the set of echo signals including first echo signals taken of tissue of the region of interest in a first compressive state and second echo signals taken of tissue of the region of interest in a second compressive state; and a processor operating according to a predetermined program to: (a) model variations in the acoustic property of the material in the region of interest as a function of strain; (b) determine a corrected strain of a plurality of voxels in the region of interest from a measured strain derived from differences between the first and second echo signals by correcting the measured strain of the plurality of voxels by the modeled variations in acoustic property; the correction determining variations in acoustic property of the material from ultrasonic measurements of the region of interest; and (c) compute elasticity at the plurality of voxels from the corrected strains.