Elastographic versus x-ray CT imaging of radio frequency ablation coagulations: An in vitro study

Techniques to image elasticity parameters (i.e., elastography) have recently become of great interest to researchers. In this paper we use conventional ultrasound elastography and x-ray CT to image radio frequency (RF) ablation sites of excised canine liver enclosed in gelatin. Thermal coagulations of different sizes were produced by applying the RF procedure for various times and end point temperatures. Dimensions, areas and volumes computed from CT and elastography were compared with those on whole mount pathology specimens. Ultrasound elastography exhibited high contrast for the thermal coagulations and performed better than CT. The correlation between pathology and elastography for this sample set of 40 thermal coagulations (r=0.94 for volume estimation, r =0.87 for area estimation) is better than the correlation between pathology and CT (r=0.89 for volume estimation, r=0.82 for area estimation).