@misc{10481/61850,
year = {2019},
month = {7},
url = {http://hdl.handle.net/10481/61850},
abstract = {The reconstruction of viscous properties of soft tissues, and more specifically, of cervical
tissue is a challenging problem. In this paper, a new method is proposed to reconstruct the
viscoelastic parameters of cervical tissue-mimicking phantoms by a Torsional Wave Elastography
(TWE) technique. The reconstruction method, based on a Probabilistic Inverse Problem (PIP)
approach, is presented and experimentally validated against Shear Wave Elastography (SWE).
The anatomy of the cervical tissue has been mimicked by means of a two-layer gelatine phantom
that simulates the epithelial and connective layers. Five ad hoc oil-in-gelatine phantoms were
fabricated at different proportion to test the new reconstruction technique. The PIP approach was used
for reconstructing the Kelvin-Voigt (KV) viscoelastic parameters by comparing the measurements
obtained from the TWE technique with the synthetic signals from a Finite Difference Time Domain
(FDTD) KV wave propagation model. Additionally, SWE tests were realized in order to characterize
the viscoelastic properties of each batch of gelatine. Finally, validation was carried out by comparing
the KV parameters inferred from the PIP with those reconstructed from the shear wave dispersion
curve obtained from the SWE measurements. In order to test the degree of agreement between
both techniques, a Student’s T-test and a Pearson’s correlation study were performed. The results
indicate that the proposed method is able to reconstruct the KV viscoelastic properties of the cervical
tissue, for both the epithelial and connective layers, as well as the thickness of the first layer with
acceptable accuracy.},
organization = {This research was supported by the Ministry of Education, DPI2017-83859-R, DPI2014-51870-R, and
UNGR15-CE-3664, Ministry of Health DTS15/00093, and Junta de Andalucía PI16/00339, PI-0107-2017, and
PIN-0030-2017 projects.},
publisher = {MDPI},
keywords = {Torsional Wave Elastography},
keywords = {Shear Wave Elastography Imaging},
keywords = {Tissue mimicking phantom},
keywords = {Kelvin-Voigt model},
keywords = {Cervical biomechanics},
title = {Kelvin–Voigt Parameters Reconstruction of Cervical Tissue-Mimicking Phantoms Using Torsional Wave Elastography},
doi = {10.3390/s19153281},
author = {Callejas Zafra, Antonio Manuel and Gómez, Antonio and Faris, Inas and Melchor, Juan and Rus Carlborg, Guillermo},
}