Ultrasonic measurements of shear wave propagation in soft tissue phantom for tissue characterization

An ultrasonic technique and measurements of shear wave (SW) propagation in a soft tissue mimicking phantom are presented. A SW was transmitted into a hydrogel-based gelatin phantom by a rectangular vibration source. The displacements within the phantom induced by the SW propagation were measured by a speckle-echo tracking method. The speckle echoes were traced from the phase changes of the ultrasound signals analyzed by a quadrature detection technique. An evaluation of SW absorption coefficient of the phantom was conducted based on the wave diffraction theory. The preliminary result showed that the measured SW attenuation had good agreement with the numerical calculation regarding the effects of wave diffraction and absorption. Therefore, it is demonstrated that the SW absorption coefficient can be estimated by measuring SW propagation.