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Abstract #1475

Revealing the Origin of Attenuation in Tissue: Pure Absorption or Multiple Scattering?

Ralph Sinkus1, Sverre Holm2, Bojan Guzina3, Sven Peter Nsholm2, Philippe Garteiser1, Sabrina Doblas1, Bernard E. Van Beers1, Valrie Vilgrain1

1Dept. of Radiology, CRB3, Hpital Beaujon (U773), INSERM, Clichy, France; 2Dept. of Informatics, University of Oslo, Norway; 3Department of Civil Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, United States


At present, the origin of the power-law behaviour of the tissues complex shear modulus in the frequency domain is not understood. Multiple-scattering theories do provide a physical explanation for this phenomenon but require that very-short-delay multiple reflections do occur. We demonstrate via in-vivo transient MR-Elastography for the first time that that very-short-delay multiple reflections are present in liver tissue and that they are absent in a silicon phantom. This sets the basis for further research investigating whether the predicted link between the spatial distribution of reflection coefficients and the observed dispersive behaviour of G* indeed holds.