Shear wave imaging at high frequencies: A feasibility study in tissue mimicking gelatin phantoms

Cancer research greatly benefits from data provided by tissue biomarkers. One such biomarker can be considered the biomechanical properties of tissue. This data can be acquired using ultrasound elastography, particularly shear wave imaging (SWI). Many current clinical systems utilize a low frequency (5-10 MHz) hampering the spatial resolution. A system and corresponding gelatin phantoms have been designed with a 25 MHz transducer for acquisition. There was good agreement with current “gold standard” techniques and a linear dependency of gelatin concentration to the shear wave speed was observed.