Strain elastography

Last revised by Mostafa El-Feky on 11 Nov 2022

Citation, DOI, disclosures and article data

Citation:

Morgan M, El-Feky M, Iqbal S, et al. Strain elastography. Reference article, Radiopaedia.org (Accessed on 01 Dec 2023) https://doi.org/10.53347/rID-32099

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.53347/rID-32099

Permalink:

https://radiopaedia.org/articles/32099?iframe=true

rID:

32099

Article created:

13 Nov 2014, Matt A. Morgan ◉

Disclosures:

At the time the article was created Matt A. Morgan had no recorded disclosures.

View Matt A. Morgan's current disclosures

Last revised:

11 Nov 2022, Mostafa El-Feky ◉

Disclosures:

At the time the article was last revised Mostafa El-Feky had no financial relationships to ineligible companies to disclose.

View Mostafa El-Feky's current disclosures

Revisions:

6 times, by 5 contributors - see full revision history and disclosures

Sections:

Imaging Technology

Tags:

ultrasound, elastography, physics

Synonyms:

Tissue strain imaging
Static elastography
Compression elastography

Strain elastography (also known as tissue strain elastography/static elastography/compression elastography) is a developing form of ultrasound that assesses tissues' macroscopic structure through the strain modulus. This is different from normal B-mode grayscale ultrasound which characterizes a tissue's elasticity but at a microscopic level.

Strain elastography relies on Young's modulus to detect strain in the axial dimension. The characteristics of an ultrasound beam through tissue before and after compression are compared. In some systems, the strain of tissues is measured in a semi-quantitative way, relying on Young's modulus, but not directly calculating it.

Applications of strain elastography are currently being developed for:

breast ultrasound
liver ultrasound
- detection of small lesions
- evaluation of diffuse liver disease
prostate ultrasound
thyroid nodule ultrasound
musculoskeletal ultrasound
obstetric ultrasound for preterm labor ²

There may also be some applications in echocardiography.

The technique is still being developed for clinical use. Currently, there are a number of different ways to perform strain elastography and continued improvement in differentiation between the lesion and background tissue is necessary for reliable clinical diagnosis.