Assessment of shear modulus of tissue using ultrasound radiation force acting on a spherical acoustic inhomogeneity

An ultrasound-based method to locally assess the shear modulus of a medium is reported. The proposed approach is based on the application of an impulse acoustic radiation force to an inhomogeneity in the medium and subsequent monitoring of the spatio-temporal response. In our experimental studies, a short pulse produced by a 1.5-MHz highly focused ultrasound transducer was used to initiate the motion of a rigid sphere embedded into an elastic medium. Another 25 MHz focused ultrasound transducer operating in pulse-echo mode was used to track the displacement of the sphere. The experiments were performed in gel phantoms with varying shear modulus to demonstrate the relationship between the displacement of the sphere and shear modulus of the surrounding medium. Because the magnitude of acoustic force applied to sphere depends on the acoustic material properties and, therefore, cannot be used to assess the absolute value of shear modulus, the temporal behavior of the displacement of the sphere was analyzed. The results of this study indicate that there is a strong correlation between the shear modulus of a medium and spatio-temporal characteristics of the motion of the rigid sphere embedded in this medium.