A new system for the acquisition of ultrasonic multicompression strain images of the human prostate in vivo

We describe a novel recording system for the acquisition of multicompressio n strain images of the human prostate in vivo. The force at the tip of an u ltrasonic transrectal probe is measured continuously, and ultrasonic rf-ima ges are acquired consecutively at specified levels of compression. The acqu ired image sequence is processed by conventional cross-correlation techniqu es to obtain time shift estimates and corresponding strain images. We prese nt phantom measurements as well as in vivo results and discuss the advantag es and restrictions of the proposed system.