High-resolution mechanical imaging of the kidney

The objective of this study was to test the feasibility and reproducibility of in vivo high-resolution mechanical imaging of the asymptomatic human kidney. Hereby nine volunteers were examined at three different physiological states of urinary bladder filling (a normal state, urinary urgency, and immediately after urinary relief). Mechanical imaging was performed of the in vivo kidney using three-dimensional multifrequency magnetic resonance elastography combined with multifrequency dual elastovisco inversion. Other than in classical elastography, where the storage and loss shear moduli are evaluated, we analyzed the magnitude |G^?| and the phase angle φ of the complex shear modulus reconstructed by simultaneous inversion of full wave field data corresponding to 7 harmonic drive frequencies from 30 to 60 Hz and a resolution of 2.5 mm cubic voxel size.