Transforming the Armed Forces of Central and East Europe

Abstract
The goal of this research program is to develop a sensitive diagnostic technique based on quantitative elasticity imaging permitting surrogate palpation of deep lying breast lesions. The remote measurement of elasticity in breast tissues may provide unique information which could increase detection and/or characterization of potentially malignant masses not accessible to manual palpation. The primary technical objective of this study is to refine and test an MRI method for the acquisition of high resolution 3- dimensional (3D) spatial displacement data through the imaged object for quantitative estimation of internal strain and elastic modulus. Proof-of-concept of the proposed 3D displacement-encoding, stimulated echo technique has been completed and published using two-dimensional test objects. A pneumatically-driven deformation device under acquisition sequence control has been designed, constructed, and demonstrated to produce highly reproducible deformations of the imaged object. The image acquisition sequence has been generalized to encode 3D displacements over a 3D volume using classic 3D and fast-spin- echo schemes. Volumetric datasets of 3D phantoms have been acquired and submitted for processing using newly developed 3D elasticity reconstruction algorithms. Comparisons between 2D and 3D elasticity reconstructions from simulated and experimental displacement data shows higher accuracy of the 3D elasticity reconstruction.

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