Ultrasound Shear Wave Elastography in Cardiology.

The advent of high-frame rate imaging in ultrasound allowed the development of shear wave elastography as a noninvasive alternative for myocardial stiffness assessment. It measures mechanical waves propagating along the cardiac wall with speeds that are related to stiffness. The use of cardiac shear wave elastography in clinical studies is increasing, but a proper understanding of the different factors that affect wave propagation is required to correctly interpret results because of the heart's thin-walled geometry and intricate material properties. The aims of this review are to give an overview of the general concepts in cardiac shear wave elastography and to discuss in depth the effects of age, hemodynamic loading, cardiac morphology, fiber architecture, contractility, viscoelasticity, and system-dependent factors on the measurements, with a focus on clinical application. It also describes how these factors should be considered during acquisition, analysis, and reporting to ensure an accurate, robust, and reproducible measurement of the shear wave.
Competing Interests: Funding Support and Author Disclosures This work was supported by the Research Foundation Flanders under grants 1211620N and 12B3124N to Dr Caenen and grant G092318N to Dr Bézy. Dr Voigt holds a personal research mandate of the Research Foundation Flanders (1832922N). Dr Nightingale has intellectual property related to radiation force-based imaging technologies that has been licensed to Siemens, Samsung, and MicroElastic Ultrasound Systems. Dr Pernot has intellectual property related to SWE that has been licensed to eMyoSound. Dr Vos has an ongoing research collaboration with Mindray Ultrasound. Drs Voigt and Jan D’hooge have an ongoing research collaboration with GE Vingmed. All other authors have reported that they have no relationships relevant to the contents of this paper to disclose.
(Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier Inc.)