Ultrasound Shear Wave Elastography and Transient Optical Coherence Elastography: Side-by-Side Comparison of Repeatability and Accuracy.

Justin R Rippy,Salavat R Aglyamov,Manmohan Singh,Kirill V Larin

doi:10.1109/ojemb.2021.3075569

Justin R Rippy, Salavat R Aglyamov + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1109/ojemb.2021.3075569

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Abstract

Objective: We compare the repeatability and accuracy of ultrasound shear wave elastography (USE) and transient optical coherence elastography (OCE). Methods: Elastic wave speed in gelatin phantoms and chicken breast was measured with USE and OCE and compared with uniaxial mechanical compression testing. Intra- and Inter-repeatability were analyzed using Bland-Altman plots and intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC). Results: OCE and USE differed from uniaxial testing by a mean absolute percent error of 8.92% and 16.9%, respectively, across eight phantoms of varying stiffness. Upper and lower limits of agreement for intrasample repeatability for USE and OCE were ±0.075 m/s and −0.14 m/s and 0.13 m/s, respectively. OCE and USE both had ICCs of 0.9991. In chicken breast, ICC for USE was 0.9385 and for OCE was 0.9924. Conclusion: OCE and USE can detect small speed changes and give comparable measurements. These measurements correspond well with uniaxial testing.

Highlights

The underlying mechanical properties of tissues are important for organ development, cell migration, cell behavior, and wound healing
Each plot shows the difference in the shear wave velocity of each of the 5 repeated measurements for each phantom compared with the mean speed of the 5 measurements
Internal repeatability was analyzed using intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) [15] (USE: 0.9991, optical coherence elastography (OCE): 0.9991, uniaxial testing (UT): 0.9994), which are all excellent as expected from phantom measurements

Summary

Introduction

The underlying mechanical properties of tissues are important for organ development, cell migration, cell behavior, and wound healing. Because tissue mechanical properties are relevant to many biological processes and disease states, it is essential to be able to measure them with both high precision and accuracy. Elastography is a well-established noninvasive imaging technique to assess tissue mechanical properties. The tissue is deformed and the tissue response is measured. Dynamic techniques are preferred since they do not require a priori knowledge of the excitation forces. The most common dynamic technique is shear wave elastography, where a mechanical wave is induced in tissue and tracked via one of several imaging modalities. The wave speed can be used to estimate tissue mechanical properties

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