3D Liver Shear Wave Absolute Vibro-Elastography with an xMATRIX Array - A Healthy Volunteer Study

Magnetic resonance elastography (MRE), which quantitatively measures shear modulus over a volume, provides an accurate imaging-based fibrosis staging comparable to biopsy. While ultrasound-based elastography methods for liver fibrosis staging have been developed, they are confined to a 1D or a 2D region of interest and to a limited depth. We present a novel matrix array implementation of the 3D Shear Wave Absolute Vibro-Elastography (S-WAVE)and validate its performance. We use an EPIQ 7G ultrasound machine with an X6-1 xMATRIX transducer (Philips Healthcare, Bothell, WA)to sample tissue motion and reconstruct the elasticity map in 3D. The system was validated for a liver tissue phantom against measurements obtained with transient elastography (FibroScan, Echosens), ultrasound point quantification shear wave elastography (ElastPQ, Philips), 2D shear wave imaging (ElastQ, Philips)and MRE. With ethics approval, five healthy volunteers were imaged with MRE and S-WAVE, and the results indicate that S-WAVE with xMATRIX produces comparable results with MRE.