Manual compression
• Press “Elasto” button at the console to activate.
• Select Strain on Touch panel.
• Adjust the position of the ROI to place the suspicious area at the center.
• Adjust the size to include surrounding tissue (ROI’s size = x3 dimension of the lesion per axis).
Manual compression depends on the type of probe.
• Linear probes: Perform slight compressions keeping transducer perpendicular to the skin. Duration: 5 sec or 10 compressions.
• Convex probes: Turn the patient on his left side more than 90 deg. Pressing with the probe above the lesion, allowing the heart and lungs to create the compressions.
• Endocavitary probes: Perform soft, angular movement in plane of the probe. Duration: 5 sec or 10 compressions.
Select the frame to analyze
• Press “Freeze”.
• Using the trackball or “frame by frame” knob, select a frame on a plateau of the quality graph (Image 1, A) or when consistent frames with green bars are visualized. (Image 1, B) The relation between elastogram colors and area’s stiffness is given at the elastography color bar. (Image 1, C)