Ultrasound Elastography for Biomedical Applications and Medicine

1 Editors' Introduction

Ivan Nenadic¹, Matthew Urban², James Greenleaf¹, Jean‐Luc Gennisson³, Miguel Bernal⁴ and Mickael Tanter⁵

¹, Department of Physiology and Biomedical Engineering, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA

² Department of Radiology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA

³ Imagerie par Résonance Magnétique Médicale et Multi‐Modalités, Université Paris‐Saclay, Orsay, France

⁴ Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, Medellín, Colombia

⁵ Institut Langevin–Waves and Images, Ecole Superieure de Physique et de Chimie, Industrielle (ESPCI) Paris, France

Medical imaging has become an integrated part of modern medicine. Images are made on the basis of exploiting physical processes as contrast mechanisms. For example, X‐Ray imaging takes advantage of the differences in mass density of different tissues. Magnetic resonance imaging uses proton densities and magnetic relaxation times to create exquisite images of different soft tissues. Ultrasound imaging takes advantage of acoustic impedance differences related to the compressibility of tissue.

Palpation has been practiced by physicians for centuries because pathological tissue “feels” harder or stiffer than normal tissues, as in the examples of breast tumors. Palpation has some disadvantages – such as being subjective, dependent on the proficiency of the examiner, insensitive to deep or small lesions, and difficult to compare assessments at different time points. For the last 25 years scientists have been working ...