Advances in ultrasound elastography

The purpose of elastography is to characterize from mechanical point of view a material (the soft biological tissues in the medical field). Ultrasound elastography is based on the comparison of ultrasound images, when the material is submitted under axial force (compression). This work presents the advances in the instrumentation of an ultrasound scanner, to acquire a sequence of images which will be processed in the aim of elastography. First, motion estimation between two or more images is processed. The estimated displacement gives the possibility to obtain detailed deformation elastograms. Thus, the presence of a hard inclusion (that simulates a tumor a pathological tissue) within a phantom mimicking soft tissues can be more easily detected, which may lead to a better cancer diagnosis.