Magnetic Resonance Elastography in the breast: initial reconstructions of damping coefficient

Magnetic Resonance Elastography (MRE) is an exciting imaging technique with application to clinical settings where quantitative maps of tissue mechanical properties may be diagnostic. This certainly includes breast imaging where hardness has been associated with malignancy. We have been developing time-harmonic MRE methods for the breast in anticipation of evaluating the approach in a controlled series of clinical exams. In this paper, we present initial experience with a 3-parameter image reconstruction technique which is based on a damped Maxwellian model approximation to tissue viscoelasticity. The algorithm estimates shear modulus and Poisson ratio along with a damping coefficient. Preliminary results in phantoms and in vivo in the breast show that the damping coefficient images recovered are likely to augment the diagnostic power of the technique for discriminating breast tissue characteristics.