Estimation of viscoelasticity of arterial or venous wall

A system for estimation of viscoelasticity of an arterial or venous wall, comprising:

• an ultrasound scanner configured for shear wave elastography (SWE);
• and
• a computing device comprising a processor and memory, the computing device configured to at least:
• obtain ultrasound data of an arterial or venous wall for a defined acoustic radiation force (ARF), the ultrasound data obtained via the ultrasound scanner;
• and
• determine viscoelasticity of the arterial or venous wall, where the viscoelasticity is determined:
• based upon correlation between measured and simulated wall velocity of the ultrasound data in a space-time, a wavenumber-frequency, wavenumber-time, or space-frequency domain, where the simulated velocity is determined for a wall thickness and viscoelastic modulus of the arterial or venous wall through full wave analysis;
• or
• in a sequential manner by determining the elastic part of the modulus by matching measured and simulated group or phase velocities and determining the viscoelasticity part by matching measured and simulated wall velocities;
• or
• using a combination of both.