Elastografisk

Elastografisk is an adjective used in Swedish and Norwegian to denote elastography, a medical imaging approach that maps tissue stiffness. Elastography provides information about the mechanical properties of tissue, complementing conventional anatomical imaging and aiding in characterizing lesions and disease.

The main modalities are ultrasound elastography and magnetic resonance elastography. Ultrasound elastography includes strain elastography, which analyzes tissue displacement under external compression to produce qualitative or semi-quantitative maps of relative stiffness, and shear-wave elastography (SWE), which uses focused ultrasound to generate shear waves and estimates stiffness from the speed of these waves. Magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) uses externally applied mechanical vibrations and MR imaging to visualize propagating shear waves and derive quantitative stiffness maps.

Elastograms display relative stiffness, often with color coding. Areas of increased stiffness may indicate fibrosis, malignancy, or other pathological changes, but interpretation must be integrated with clinical information and other imaging findings.||

Applications include liver fibrosis staging, where stiffness correlates with fibrosis level; characterization of breast lesions; evaluation of thyroid nodules; and growing use in pancreas and prostate imaging. In research, elastography is employed to monitor therapy response and to study tissue mechanics.

Limitations include variability in accuracy across techniques and devices, operator dependence for some methods, and susceptibility to artifacts from motion, breathing, obesity, or heavily calcified tissue. Standardization of protocols and threshold values remains an ongoing effort.

Safety and accessibility are favorable: elastography is noninvasive and typically does not require ionizing radiation, and it is increasingly available wherever ultrasound or MRI is used for diagnostic imaging.