Acoustoelasticity in transversely isotropic soft tissues: Quantification of muscle nonlinear elasticity

Recent developments in the field of elastography aim at developing the quantification of new mechanical properties of tissues, that are complementary to the shear modulus, which is characteristic of the linear elastic properties of a quasi-incompressible medium. In this context, measurement of the elastic nonlinearity of tissues was recently proposed based on acoustoelasticity. Up to now, most of the experimental applications of acoustoelasticity theory using Landau formalism in human tissues have assumed isotropy. However, this strong hypothesis does not hold in all human tissues, such as muscles that are generally considered as transversely isotropic (TI). In this work, after reviewing the constraints imposed by TI symmetry on the linear and nonlinear elastic properties of TI media, the acoustoelasticity theory in TI incompressible media is developed and implemented experimentally on a TI polyvinyl alcohol phantom and on ex vivo muscular tissues. Based on this theory and on the evolutions of the shear wave speed, with respect to uniaxial static stress, the nonlinear elastic parameter A is experimentally quantified. The estimations of A in ex vivo bovine and porcine muscles are on the order of hundreds of kPa. This work paves the way for more thorough muscle mechanical properties characterization as well as for the development of a potential new biomarker.