Young's modulus reconstruction for elasticity imaging of deep venous thrombosis: animal studies

Recently, it was suggested that ultrasound elasticity imaging can be used to age deep vein thrombosis (DVT) since blood clot hardness changes with fibrin content. The main components of ultrasound elasticity imaging are deformation of the object, speckle or internal boundary tracking and evaluation of tissue motion, measurement of strain tensor components, and reconstruction of the spatial distribution of elastic modulus using strain images. In this paper, we investigate a technique for Young's modulus reconstruction to quantify ultrasound elasticity imaging of DVT. In-vivo strain imaging experiments were performed using Sprague-Dawley rats with surgically induced clots in the inferior vena cavas (IVC). In this model, the clot matures from acute to chronic in less than 10 days. Therefore, nearly every 24 hours the strain imaging experiments were performed to reveal temporal transformation of the clot. The measured displacement and strain images were then converted into maps of elasticity using model-based elasticity reconstruction where the blood clot within an occluded vein was approximated as a layered elastic cylinder surrounded by incompressible tissue. Results of this study demonstrate that Young's modulus gradually increases with clot maturity and can be used to differentiate clots providing a desperately needed clinical tool of DVT staging.