Vol. 9, Special Issue 9, Part S (2025)

A relatively recent noninvasive imaging technique that map elastic characteristics of soft tissues is called elastography. The application of ultrasound elastography for imaging tissues was first described in 1987 by Krouskop. Elastography has recently became available in a number of commercial ultrasound systems and is beginning to show promise in a variety of clinical settings. Elastography, which examines tissue elasticity, measures a tissue's capacity to withstand deformation when a force is applied or to return to its former shape when force is removed. assuming that a material's deformation doesn’t depend on time and that it's entirely elastic. Hooke's Law can be used to characterize elasticity.

There are several ultrasound-based elastographic techniques. Strain imaging, SWI (Shear wave imaging) are 2 primary types of ultrasonic elastography. There are 2 main forms of SWE: point SWE (pSWE), that samples a very short linear segment of tissue (few millimeter), and 2D-SWE (bi-dimensional SWE), which samples large square regions of 1-4 cm2. By utilizing altered elasticity of soft tissues brought on by particular pathological or physiological processes, clinical applications involving differentiation of malignant and benign tumors, evaluation of liver and renal fibrosis, quantification of portal hypertension, breast, prostate, thyroid, and lymph node imaging, among others.