Abstract
Ultrasound elastography enables in vivo measurement of the mechanical properties of living soft tissues in a non-destructive and non-invasive manner and has attracted considerable interest for clinical use in recent years. Continuum mechanics plays an essential role in understanding and improving ultrasound-based elastography methods and is the main focus of this review. In particular, the mechanics theories involved in both static and dynamic elastography methods are surveyed. They may help understand the challenges in and opportunities for the practical applications of various ultrasound elastography methods to characterize the linear elastic, viscoelastic, anisotropic elastic and hyperelastic properties of both bulk and thin-walled soft materials, especially the in vivo characterization of biological soft tissues.
Highlights
The elastography method, which was proposed in the 1990s, enables probing the elastic properties of living soft tissues and has found wide medical applications in the past two decades [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]
Ultrasound-based elastography has emerged as a highly useful technique for characterizing the mechanical properties of soft materials, including living soft tissues, because of the extensive experimental and theoretical research performed in recent years, which has improved understanding of this technique and its applications, in clinics
Researchers, those in the mechanics community, deserve to pay attention to these important issues. Some of these questions include the following: (i) How can we improve the current elastography methods based on the knowledge from the field of continuum mechanics to quantitatively determine the mechanical properties of soft tissues in critical cases, such as when the soft tissues are anisotropic and/or have finite dimensions that significantly influence the propagation of shear waves? (ii) What opportunities exist for developing robust Guided wave elastography (GWE) methods to characterize the mechanical properties of thin-walled soft tissues, including arteries and bladder, in vivo based on the knowledge of guided wave in pre-stressed thin-walled soft solids? (iii) Diseases may alter the structures and functions of soft tissues/organs and change their mechanical properties
Summary
The elastography method, which was proposed in the 1990s, enables probing the elastic properties of living soft tissues and has found wide medical applications in the past two decades [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]. The questions of how to understand the responses of living soft tissues to various external/internal stimuli in ultrasound elastography and how to establish robust inverse approaches to infer different material parameters of soft tissues have come under the spotlight of the mechanics and applied mathematics research communities. Bearing this issue in mind, distinct from previous review papers, this review focuses on the mechanics principles underpinning elastography methods to highlight the limitations, challenges and opportunities of these methods from the viewpoint of continuum mechanics.
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