Ultrasonic biomechanical strain gauge based on speckle tracking

The potential of ultrasonic speckle tracking for characterizing tissue dynamics was illustrated and validated by an experiment with a tissue-mimicking phantom undergoing compression during a 2-D echographic-sequence acquisition. The speckle linear transformation (LT) is then computed from successive frames in the echographic sequences using an optical-flow algorithm. Compression and expansion strains computed from speckle LT agree well with induced deformation values. The feasibility of the method was then investigated in a preliminary study of skeletal muscle contraction. Results indicate the usefulness of speckle tracking as a method for assessing the contractile performance of cardiac and skeletal muscles.<>