Elastography and strain rate imaging of the gastrointestinal tract.

Ultrasound based elastography of the gastrointestinal tract may be a useful approach to improved tissue characterisation. Distinguishing malignant lesions from benign may be one useful application. Monitoring of inflammatory bowel lesions for degree of inflammation or fibrosis would be another clinically useful tool. The anatomy of the bowel, however, raises many challenges for strain or shear wave imaging due to thin structures, non-constant boundary conditions and intrinsic contractility. Pathological lesions tend to increase bowel wall thickness and may ease elastography imaging. Very few studies have addressed issues of bowel wall elastography so far, and both inflammatory and neoplastic lesions seem to increase tissue hardness in the bowel wall.