Fourier domain and high frame rate based elastography for breast nodules investigation

The malignant/benign characterization of breast nodules represents a main concern in current senology diagnostic practice. Investigation through manual palpation and B-mode imaging plays a major role, but the attainable specificity is still too low. Several studies show that elastography could help reducing false positive cases. In freehand elastography the probe is manually moved to produce an axial compression in the tissue to be investigated. The axial strain tensor is then estimated by calculating the gradient of the produced displacement. A new elastography method, based on a Fourier domain displacement estimator and a high frame-rate averaging technique, has been recently shown to produce robust strain estimates on phantoms compressed with computer control. In this study we extend the test of this method to in-vivo investigation on breast. Results of the investigation of 6 malignant and 10 benign lesions in 11 patients aged between 30 and 84 are reported.