High-Frequency Ultrasound Elastography for Assessing Elastic Properties of Skin and Scars

Wei Yu Tsai, Yuan Yu Hsueh, Pei Yu Chen, Kuo Shu Hung, Chih Chung Huang

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

11 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Scars are a type of fibrous tissue that typically forms during the wound healing process to replace damaged skin. Because studies have indicated a high correlation between scar stiffness and clinical symptoms, assessing the mechanical properties of scar is crucial for determining an appropriate treatment strategy and evaluating the treatment's efficacy. Shear wave elastography (SWE) is a common technique for measuring tissue elasticity. Because scars are typically a few millimeters thick, they are thin-layer tissues, and therefore, the dispersion effect must be considered to accurately estimate their elasticity. In this study, high-frequency ultrasound (HFUS) elastography was proposed for estimating the elastic properties of scars by using the Lamb wave model (LWM). An external vibrator was used to generate elastic waves in scar tissue and skin, and the propagation of the elastic waves was tracked through 40-MHz ultrafast ultrasound imaging. The elasticity was estimated through shear wave models (SWMs) and LWMs. The effectiveness of using HFUS elastography was verified through phantom and human studies. The phantom experiments involved bulk phantoms with gelatin concentrations of 7% and 15% and 2-4-mm-thick thin-layer 15% gelatin phantoms. The studies of three patients with eight cases of scarring were also conducted. The phantom experimental results demonstrated that the elasticity estimation biases for the thin-layer mediums were approximately -36% to -50% and 3% to -9% in the SWMs and LWMs, respectively, and the estimated shear moduli were 12.8 ± 5.4 kPa and 74.8 ± 26.8 kPa for healthy skin and scar tissue, respectively. All the results demonstrated that the proposed HFUS elastography has a great potential for improving the accuracy of elasticity estimations in clinical dermatological diagnoses.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1871-1880
Number of pages10
JournalIEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control
Volume69
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022 Jun 1

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Instrumentation
  • Acoustics and Ultrasonics
  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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