Shear-Wave and Strain Elastography: A Comparative Review on Principles, Basic Techniques and Applications.

Elastography is relatively a new diagnostic modality that is being used in the field of medicine. There are 2 basic types of elastography techniques; strain elastography and shear-wave elastography. This review details the principle, its applications and draws differences between the two imaging modalities. Literature from PubMed was searched within the year 2015 only, that contain the search terms ‘strain elastography’ and ‘shear wave elastography’ individually. Articles were carefully selected that must cover at least one application of Liver, Breast, Thyroid, Gastrointestinal tract, Prostate and Musculoskeletal. This review opens a new insight into comparative studies for strain elastography and shear wave elastography techniques, as limited data is available as how these two imaging diagnostic modalities behave under same circumstances. Keywords: Elastography applications, elastography, shear-wave, strain, ultrasound.