Hitachi Real-time Tissue Elastography (HI-RTE)
Assessment and visualisation of tissue elasticity
It is well known that tumours and certain inflammatory conditions can lead to tissue hardening and loss of elasticity. Assessment and visualisation of elasticity can provide potentially vital information for disease diagnosis.
Hitachi’s Real-time Tissue Elastography module uses an extended combined autocorrelation methodology to produce an elasticity image in real time. It uses a freehand approach to compress the tissues with the ultrasound transducer – a technique which is easily integrated into the routine ultrasound examination.
Compression comparison |
characteristics of amplitudes |
HI-RTE |
Relative tissue elasticity is calculated and displayed as a colour overlay of the conventional B-mode image. Stiffer tissue structures are displayed in blue, while the more easily deformed tissues are in red.
Clinical evaluation of the modality has shown that lesions can be characterised more rapidly and with a higher degree of accuracy, when elastography is incorporated into the conventional examination.
The Hitachi Real-time Tissue Elastography examples shown here have been acquired using standard linear ultrasound imaging probes or specialist imaging transducers, for endocavity and endoscopic applications.
An invasive ductal carcinoma |
Strain ratio in benign fibroadenoma |
Complex thyroid nodule |
Metastatic lymph node |
Prostate carcinoma |
Ductal adenocarcinoma of pancreas |
