甲状腺结节的实时超声弹性成像的研究

ON REAL-TIME ULTRASOUND ELASTOGRAPHY OF THYROID NODULES

生物组织的力学特性和病理变化都与其硬度变化有关,因此,软组织的弹性信息对疾病的诊断具有重要参考价值。超声弹性成像是以弹性图的形式直接描述与组织硬度有关的信息。利用互信息及动态规划的方法计算体模组织形变后的位移图像,并在此基础上得到应变场图像。最后,分别用上述方法对甲状腺疾病患者的超声检查数据进行弹性成像。实验结果显示,互信息方法原理简单,易于实现,但其运行效率不高且成像质量一般,而动态规划方法具有较高的信噪比(SNR)、对比信噪比(CNR)、分辨率以及时间效率,更适合临床上甲状腺的实时超声成像。

Mechanical characteristics and pathological changes of biological soft tissues are relative to their hardness.The elastographic information of soft tissue is therefore important in reference value to the diagnosis of disease.Ultrasound elastographic imaging directly describes the information relative to the stiffness of soft tissue in form of elastography.In our study,we used the methods of mutual information and dynamic programming to calculate the displacement map of the deformed phantom tissues and then to obtain the strain field map on that basis.At last we applied the aforementioned methods to form the elastography based on ultrasound B-mode data of thyroid nodule disease patients sampled in clinic.Experimental results show that,the mutual information method is simple in principle and easy to implement,but its operating efficiency and the imaging quality are all just ordinary;while the dynamic programming method has higher signal to noise ratio（SNR）,contrast to noise ratio（CNR）,resolution and time efficiency,and is more suitable to the real-time ultrasound elastography of thyroid nodules in clinic.