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Abstract Dynamic elastography, whether based on magnetic resonance, ultrasound, or optical modalities, attempts to reconstruct quantitative maps of the viscoelastic properties of biological tissue, properties altered by disease and injury, by noninvasively measuring mechanical wave motion in the tissue. Most reconstruction strategies that have been developed neglect boundary conditions, including quasi-static tensile or compressive loading resulting in a nonzero prestress. Significant prestress is inherent to the functional role of some biological tissues currently being studied using elastography, such as skeletal and cardiac muscle, arterial walls, and the cornea. In the present article a configuration, inspired by muscle elastography but generalizable to other applications, is analytically and experimentally studied. A hyperelastic polymer phantom cylinder is statically elongated in the axial direction while its response to transverse-polarized vibratory excitation is measured. We examine the interplay between uniaxial prestress and waveguide effects in this muscle-like tissue phantom using computational finite element simulations and magnetic resonance elastography measurements. Finite deformations caused by prestress coupled with waveguide effects lead to results that are predicted by a coordinate transformation approach that has been previously used to simplify reconstruction of anisotropic properties using elastography. Here, the approach estimates material viscoelastic properties that are independent of the nonhomogeneous prestress conditions without requiring advanced knowledge of those stress conditions. 

Abstract Dynamic elastography attempts to reconstruct quantitative maps of the viscoelastic properties of biological tissue, properties altered by disease and injury, by noninvasively measuring mechanical wave motion in the tissue. Most reconstruction strategies that have been developed neglect boundary conditions, including quasi-static tensile or compressive loading resulting in a nonzero prestress. Significant prestress is inherent to the functional role of some biological tissues, such as skeletal and cardiac muscle, arterial walls, and the cornea. In the present article a novel configuration, inspired by corneal elastography but generalizable to other applications, is studied. A polymer phantom layer is statically elongated via an in-plane biaxial normal stress while the phantom's response to transverse vibratory excitation is measured. We examine the interplay between biaxial prestress and waveguide effects in this plate-like tissue phantom. Finite static deformations caused by prestressing coupled with waveguide effects lead to results that are predicted by a novel coordinate transformation approach previously used to simplify reconstruction of anisotropic properties. Here, the approach estimates material viscoelastic properties independent of the nonzero prestress conditions without requiring advanced knowledge of those stress conditions. 

Dynamic elastography, whether based on magnetic resonance, ultrasound, or optical modalities, attempts to reconstruct quantitative maps of the viscoelastic properties of biological tissue, properties that are altered by disease and injury, by noninvasively measuring mechanical wave motion in the tissue. Most reconstruction strategies that have been developed neglect boundary conditions, including quasistatic tensile or compressive loading resulting in a nonzero prestress. Significant prestress is inherent to the functional role of some biological tissues currently being studied using elastography, such as skeletal and cardiac muscle, arterial walls, and the cornea. In the present article, we review how prestress alters both bulk mechanical wave motion and wave motion in one- and two-dimensional waveguides. Key findings are linked to studies on skeletal muscle and the human cornea, as one- and two-dimensional waveguide examples. This study highlights the underappreciated combined acoustoelastic and waveguide challenge to elastography. Can elastography truly determine viscoelastic properties of a material when what it is measuring is affected by both these material properties and unknown prestress and other boundary conditions? 

A strategy of spatial distortion to make an anisotropic problem become isotropic has been previously validated in two-dimensional transverse isotropic (TI) viscoelastic cases. Here, the approach is extended to the three-dimensional problem by considering the time-harmonic point force response (Green's function) in a TI viscoelastic material. The resulting wave field, exactly solvable using a Radon transform with numerical integration, is approximated via spatial distortion of the closed form analytical solution to the isotropic case. Different distortions are used, depending on whether the polarization of the wave motion is orthogonal to the axis of isotropy, with the approximation yielding differing levels of accuracy. 

Elastography refers to mapping mechanical properties in a material based on measuring wave motion in it using noninvasive optical, acoustic or magnetic resonance imaging methods. For example, increased stiffness will increase wavelength. Stiffness and viscosity can depend on both location and direction. A material with aligned fibers or layers may have different stiffness and viscosity values along the fibers or layers versus across them. Converting wave measurements into a mechanical property map or image is known as reconstruction. To make the reconstruction problem analytically tractable, isotropy and homogeneity are often assumed, and the effects of finite boundaries are ignored. But, infinite isotropic homogeneity is not the situation in most cases of interest, when there are pathological conditions, material faults or hidden anomalies that are not uniformly distributed in fibrous or layered structures of finite dimension. Introduction of anisotropy, inhomogeneity and finite boundaries complicates the analysis forcing the abandonment of analytically-driven strategies, in favor of numerical approximations that may be computationally expensive and yield less physical insight. A new strategy, Transformation Elastography (TE), is proposed that involves spatial distortion in order to make an anisotropic problem become isotropic. The fundamental underpinnings of TE have been proven in forward simulation problems. In the present paper a TE approach to inversion and reconstruction is introduced and validated based on numerical finite element simulations. 

A theoretical approach was recently introduced [Guidetti and Royston, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 144, 2312–2323 (2018)] for the radially converging slow shear wave pattern in transverse isotropic materials subjected to axisymmetric excitation normal to the axis of isotropy at the outer boundary of the material. This approach is enabled via transformation to an elliptic coordinate system with isotropic properties. The approach is extended to converging fast shear waves driven by axisymmetric torsional motion polarized in a plane containing the axis of isotropy. The approach involves transformation to a super-elliptic shape with isotropic properties and use of a numerically efficient boundary value approximation.