ElastografiePush the Boundaries of Ultrasound Insight

As the first company to bring Acoustic Radiation Force Impulse (ARFI) technology to the ultrasound market, Siemens offers the widest range of physician-tested elastography technologies. Available on the ACUSON S Family™, ACUSON X700™, and ACUSON NX3™ Elite ultrasound systems, these elastography imaging technologies are designed to enhance disease assessment, monitoring, and treatment.

Features & Benefits

Built on extensive clinical experience and a long legacy of innovative engineering, Siemens’ suite of elastography imaging technologies features manual compression imaging, Acoustic Radiation Force Impulse (ARFI) imaging, and shear-wave elastography measurement. Designed for use in a wide range of clinical settings, these tools deliver complete, non-invasive, real-time imaging solutions that work to promote diagnostic accuracy and confidence.

ARFI and Shear Wave Elastography Suite of Technologies
Virtual Touch™ technologies offer non-invasive tools to acquire real-time information for more informed diagnoses. With unique color and value scales to exhibit tissue characteristics, Virtual Touch equips you with a new perspective for assessing and monitoring disease, extending the clinical capabilities of our industry-leading ACUSON S2000™ and ACUSON S3000™ ultrasound systems.





Virtual Touch IQ
By combining the benefits of imaging and quantification, Virtual Touch IQ™ supports more accurate assessments of lesion morphology and heterogeneity in small parts.

Gain new levels of diagnostic insight with the unprecedented views of tissue elasticity offered by Virtual Touch IQ.




Virtual Touch Quantification
Virtual Touch™ quantification is a non-invasive, reproducible, and easily performed technology to help in the assessment of increased tissue stiffness that is associated with liver fibrosis.

Learn more about how using Virtual Touch quantification may help you avoid unnecessary biopsies.






Virtual Touch Imaging
Virtual Touch™ imaging helps you evaluate and monitor subtle changes in tissue stiffness that can be an indication of disease. This technology requires no manual compression, removing the element of user dependency.

Experience the superior differentiation of soft and stiff tissue that Virtual Touch imaging brings to exams.

Virtual Touch technologies give you the ability to:

  • Go beyond standard elastography by visualizing and quantifying tissue stiffness, which is often correlated with disease progression
  • Improve diagnostic confidence by evaluating the heterogeneity of lesions and tumors and identifying lesion boundaries
  • Pinpoint biopsy locations through the identification of the stiffest areas of tissue
  • Greater in-depth analysis and consistent monitoring on a wide variety of exams – liver, breast, thyroid, and other organs
  • Achieve a more comfortable exam experience with a non-invasive ultrasound procedure
  • Improve patient management with reproducible, reliable measurements that work to increase speed of diagnosis
  • Experience elastography technologies that are easy to operate and provide additional information for diagnoses

eSie Touch™ elasticity imaging uses gentle compression to provide a high-resolution elastogram, depicting relative tissue stiffness. It forms the elastogram by computing relative tissue deformation globally and displaying the information within a user-defined region of interest. Axial detection pulses are continuously transmitted throughout the field of view to provide information about the state of tissue deformation along each axial line at a specific point in time. Using this technique, stiff and soft tissue may be differentiated even when the tissues appear isoechoic on the B-mode exam.


eSie Touch Elasticity Imaging
By producing high-resolution elastograms that assess tissue stiffness resulting from disease, eSie Touch™ elasticity imaging provides important qualitative information about disease progression.

  • Quality Factor – Provides real-time qualitative feedback to assist users in optimizing their acquisition technique. The real-time numerical elastogram quality score provides additional information for selecting optimal images for review.
  • Elastographic Maps – High-resolution elastographic images may be visualized using a variety of grayscale and color maps.
  • Shadow Measurements – Measurement calipers are automatically applied to both images in a side-by-side display for comparison of elastograms.
  • Transducer Support - eSie Touch elasticity is supported on linear, endocavity and curved array transducers.


eSie Touch elasticity imaging is available on the ACUSON S1000TM, ACUSON S2000TM, and ACUSON S3000TM ultrasound systems.

Clinical Use

Siemens’ elastography imaging technologies deliver new insights that redefine the way you assess and treat disease. Along with offering exceptional assessments of tissue characteristics, they cover a wide range of exam types, ensuring you have the right solution for every patient.

Virtual Touch IQ
VTIQ provides multiple highly sensitive stiffness measurements of thyroid nodules.

Designed to improve targeting for biopsy locations, Virtual Touch™ IQ gives you the ability to visualize quantifiable differences in tissue elasticity. In addition, this technology offers a high level of resolution, equipping you to assess and monitor lesions as small as 3 mm.

Virtual Touch Quantification
VTq quantifies stiffness in this cirrhotic liver for assistance in disease staging and patient management.

Virtual Touch™ quantification can be utilized to obtain a baseline stiffness value in patients with signs or symptoms of liver disease. A change from this baseline stiffness value during routine follow up can indicate disease progression/regression.

Virtual Touch Imaging
VTi improves lesion boundary detection in this calcified thyroid mass.

Offering enhanced border definition and the ability to identify the stiffest portion of a lesion, Virtual Touch™ imaging works to improve the accuracy of your diagnostic measurements. When paired with superior image quality, this technology promotes a higher level of diagnostic understanding.

eSie Touch Elasticity Imaging
Improve clinical confidence by evaluating lesion stiffness with eSie Touch elasticity imaging in this large fibroadenoma.

Combining manual compression with real-time, qualitative conventional ultrasound, eSie Touch™ elasticity imaging provides a more complete view of tissue stiffness. This additional clinical information works to enhance the accuracy of disease assessment and monitoring.

Technical Details

How Virtual Touch Works

Through the use of Acoustic Radiation Force Impulse (ARFI), Virtual Touch™ technologies are able to penetrate deep tissue with speed and precision. Available on the ACUSON S2000 and ACUSON S3000 ultrasound systems, these tools deliver detailed information that supports improved disease assessment and monitoring, helping you avoid unnecessary biopsies. The result is enhanced diagnostic capabilities driven by the ability to explore tissue stiffness in greater detail.

A Simple, Four-Step Process

  1. An acoustic push pulse is applied to compress tissue in a user-defined region of interest
  2. This push pulse displaces tissue and generates shear waves that propagate perpendicularly to the push wave
  3. A Siemens-exclusive algorithm automatically measures the velocity of these shear waves
  4. You are then able to view qualitative assessments and/or quantitative measurements of the mechanical stiffness of tissue