3D Multi-plane Multi-resolution Shear Wave Elastography

We utilize Full Waveform Inversion (FWI) framework to convert shear wave elastography (SWE) measurements on multiple planes to a single three-dimensional (3D) image of elasticity using gradient optimization to adjust the elasticity map until the mismatch between simulated and measured particle velocities is minimized. Several ideas are brought together to ensure the robustness and effectiveness of the proposed FWI: correlation-based matching between measurements and simulation, high-fidelity finite element simulation of 3D shear waves in incompressible elastic media, multi-resolution parametrization to help with convergence, multi-frequency continuation for finer resolution imaging, and multi-push illumination. With the help of in silico and phantom validation studies, the algorithm is shown to be effective in providing images outside the measurement plane, including reconstructing full 3D images from 2D SWE measurements.