Effect of Graphite Concentration on Shear-Wave Speed in Gelatin-Based Tissue-Mimicking Phantoms

Abstract

Elasticity-based imaging modalities are becoming popular diagnostic tools in clinical practice. Gelatin-based, tissue mimicking phantoms that contain graphite as the acoustic scattering material are commonly used in testing and validating elasticity-imaging methods to quantify tissue stiffness. The gelatin bloom strength and concentration are used to control phantom stiffness. While it is known that graphite concentration can be modulated to control acoustic attenuation, the impact of graphite concentration on phantom elasticity has not been characterized in these gelatin phantoms. This work investigates the impact of graphite concentration on phantom shear stiffness as characterized by shear-wave speed measurements using impulsive acoustic-radiation-force excitations. Phantom shear-wave speed increased by 0.83 (m/s)/(dB/(cm MHz)) when increasing the attenuation coefficient slope of the phantom material through increasing graphite concentration. Therefore, gelatin-phantom stiffness can be affected by the conventional ways that attenuation is modulated through graphite concentration in these phantoms.

Keywords

Acoustic radiation force ARFI attenuation coefficient slope elasticity graphite phantom shear wave stiffness

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Hall

Bilgen

Insana

Krouskop

Phantom materials for elastography

IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelec Freq Contr 44, 1355–1365 (1997).

Madsen

Zagzebski

Banjavie

Jutila

Tissue mimicking materials forultrasound phantoms

Med Phys 5, 391–394 (1978).

Burlew

Madsen

Zagzebski

Banjavic

Sum

A new ultrasound tissue-equivalent material

Radiology 134, 517–520 (1980).

Nightingale

Soo

Nightingale

Trahey

Acoustic radiation force impulse imaging: In vivo and ex vivo results

Ultrasound Med Biol 2, 1715–1723 (2003).

Chaturvedi

Insana

Hall

Testing the limitations of 2-D companding for strain imaging using phantoms

IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelec Freq Contr 45, 1022–1031 (1998).

Bercoff

Tanter

Fink

Supersonic shear imaging: a new technique for soft tissue elasticity mapping

IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelec Freq Contr 51, 396–409 (2004).

Sarvazyan

Rudenki

Swanson

Fowlkes

Emelianov

Shear wave elasticity imaging: a new ultrasonic technology of medical diagnostics

Ultrasound Med Biol 24, 1419–1435 (1998).

McAleavey

Collins

Kelly

Elegbe

Validation of SMURF estimation of shear modulus in hydrogels

Ultrasonic Imaging 31, 131–150 (2009).

Chen

Urban

Pislaru

Kinnick

Zheng

Yao

Greenleaf

Shearwave dispersion ultrasound vibrometry (SDUV) for measuring tissue elasticity and viscosity

IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelec Freq Contr 56, 55–62 (2009).

10.

Foucher

Chanteloup

Vergniol

Diagnosis of cirrhosis by transient elastography (Fibroscan): a prospective study

Gut 55, 403–408 (2006).

11.

Torr

The acoustic radiation force

Amer J Phys 52, 402–408 (1984).

12.

Nyborg

Acoustic streaming, in Physical Acoustics (Academic Press Inc. New York, 1965).

13.

Palmeri

Wang

Dahl

Frinkley

Nightingale

Quantifying hepatic shear modulus in vivo using acoustic radiation force

Ultrasound Med Biol 34, 546–558 (2008).

14.

Wang

Palmeri

Rotemberg

Rouze

Nightingale

Improving the robustness of time-of-flight based shear wave speed reconstruction methods using RANSAC in human liver in vivo

Ultrasound Med Biol 36, 802–813 (2010).

15.

Rossman

Zagzebski

Mesina

Sorenson

Mazess

Comparison of speed of sound and ultrasound attenuation in the os calcis to bone density of the radius, femur and lumbar spine

Clini Phys Physiol Meas 10, 353–360 (1989).

16.

Zemp

Kim

Wang

Ultrasound-modulated optical tomography with intense acoustic bursts

Appl Opt 46, 1615–1623 (2007).

17.

Anderson

Herd

King

Interlaboratory comparison of backscatter coefficient estimates for tissue mimicking phantoms

Ultrasonic Imaging 32, 48–64 (2009).

18.

Madsen

Frank

Krouskop

Tissue mimicking oil-in-gelatin dispersions for use in heterogeneous elastography phantoms

Ultrasonic Imaging 25, 17–38 (2003).