MR Elastography Inversions Without Phase Unwrapping

Kevin John Glaser¹, Richard Lorne Ehman¹

MR elastography (MRE) is a phase-based technique for noninvasively measuring the mechanical properties of tissue in vivo. MRE data can be adversely affected by unmanageable phase aliasing due to motion, SNR, and various magnetic field effects, which can degrade estimates of material properties like the shear stiffness. This work derives and demonstrates a method for processing MRE data without having to unwrap the phase data which yields elastograms comparable to those from conventional algorithms. It is expected that this will increase the flexibility and utility of MRE for applications including brain and abdominal imaging.