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Elastography is a medical imaging modality that maps the elastic properties of soft tissue.〔〔Sarvazyan A, Hall TJ, Urban MW, Fatemi M, Aglyamov SR, Garra BS. (Overview of elastography–an emerging branch of medical imaging ). Current Medical Imaging Reviews, 2011, 7(4):255-282.〕 The main idea is that whether the tissue is hard or soft will give diagnostic information about the presence or status of disease. For example, cancerous tumours will often be harder than the surrounding tissue, and diseased livers are stiffer than healthy ones.〔〔〔 The most prominent techniques use ultrasound or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to make both the stiffness map and an anatomical image for comparison. Tactile imaging composed from acquired stress-strain data reveals elasticity and anatomical features. ==Applications== Elastography is used for the investigation of many disease conditions in many organs. It can be used for additional diagnostic information compared to a mere anatomical image, and it can be used to guide biopsies or, increasingly, replace them entirely. Biopsies are invasive and painful, presenting a risk of infection, whereas elastography is completely noninvasive. Elastography is used to investigate disease in the liver. Liver stiffness is usually indicative of fibrosis or steatosis, which are in turn indicative of numerous disease conditions, including cirrhosis and hepatitis. Elastography is particularly advantageous in this case because when fibrosis is diffuse, a biopsy can easily miss sampling the diseased tissue, which results in a misdiagnosis. Naturally, elastography sees use for organs and diseases where manual palpation was already widespread. Elastography is used for detection and diagnosis of breast, thyroid and prostate cancers. Certain types of elastography are also suitable for musculoskeletal imaging, and they can determine the mechanical properties and state of muscles and tendons. Because elastography does not have the same limitations as manual palpation, it is being investigated in some areas for which there is no history of diagnosis with manual palpation. For example, magnetic resonance elastography is capable of assessing the stiffness of the brain, and there is a growing body of scientific literature on elastography in healthy and diseased brains. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Elastography」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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