Moving beam shear wave reconstruction for both ultrasound and optical coherence tomography applications

Shear wave elasticity imaging can quantitatively estimate a stiffness map of biological tissues based on speckle-tracking shear wave propagation. However, current approaches cannot directly reconstruct elasticity properties in speckle-less or speckle-free regions, for example within the crystalline lens in ophthalmology. We propose an imaging sequence to reconstruct the elastic properties in speckle-free regions by sequentially launching shear waves with a laterally moving acoustic radiation force, and then detecting the displacement at a specific speckle-generating position. The imaging sequence was tested for both ultrasound and phase-sensitive optical coherence tomography imaging. Tissue-mimicking phantom studies were performed and results demonstrate that elastic properties can be imaged in speckle-free regions. This suggests that the method can potentially map the elasticity of the crystalline lens.