Building a virtual breast elastography phantom lab using open source software

Ultrasound-based Elastography is being used to augment in vivo characterization of breast lesions. Results from a meta-analysis of all clinical trials (up to 2011) indicated a lack of confidence in image interpretation. Such confidence can only be gained through rigorous imaging tests using complex, heterogeneous but known media. Our objective of this study is to build a virtual breast phantom lab in the public domain that can be used for rigorous imaging testing of this kind. Main thrust of this work is to streamline biomedical ultrasound simulations in conjunction with anatomically complex (software) phantoms by leveraging existing open source software packages including K-wave or Field II (acoustic simulation), VTK (data visualization and processing), FEBio (biomechanical deformation) and Tetgen (mesh generation). The integration of these four open source packages was based on a simple message-passing scheme to facilitate its use among imaging scientists.