Thyroid gland tumor diagnosis at US elastography.

Purpose: To prospectively evaluate the elastographic appearance of thyroid gland tumors and explore the potential sensitivity and specificity of ultrasonographic (US) elastography for differentiating benign and malignant tumors, with histopathologic analysis as the reference standard.

Materials And Methods: The study was institutional review board approved, and each patient gave written informed consent. Fifty-two thyroid gland lesions (22 malignant, 30 benign) in 31 consecutive patients (six men, 25 women; mean age, 49.

Vascular elasticity from regional displacement estimates.

A recently-developed ultrasonic technique for measuring elastic properties of vascular tissue is evaluated using computer simulations, phantom and in vivo human measurements. A time sequence of displacement images is measured over the cardiac cycle to describe the spatial and temporal patterns of deformation surrounding arteries. This information is combined with a mathematical model to estimate an elastic modulus.

Strain imaging of internal deformation.

A tissue-like gelatin elasticity-flow phantom was examined to develop ultrasonic strain imaging for the detection of internal pulsatile deformations. The same imaging technique was then applied in vivo to monitor deformation in tissues surrounding the normal brachial artery. The results suggest that vascular strain patterns resulting from biologic stimuli are very different from those generated using externally applied stress fields, and are directly related to pressure variations within the vessel.