Shear wave induced resonance elastography of breast tumors

Shear Wave Induced Resonance Elastography (SWIRE) has been applied to confined mimicking breast tumors. These latter have been idealized as a spherical heterogeneity embedded in an homogeneous medium transmitting torsional shear waves. First, we present a theoretical model that served to verify and physically understand the resonance induction of spheres by torsional waves. Then, experimental measurements of the resonances of a spherical heterogeneity together with the corresponding eigenmode images are presented. The good correlation between theory and experiments reveals the potential of SWIRE to segment and to mechanically characterize breast tumors. The study is concluded by a discussion on the implementation of SWIRE in the context of breast cancer elastographic imaging.