M. Tanter
Institut Langevin, ESPCI, INSERM, CNRS – Paris, France

In the last fifteen years, the concept of plane wave transmissions rather than line by line scanning beams broke the conventional limits of ultrasound imaging. By using such large field of view transmissions, the frame rate reaches the theoretical limit of physics dictated by the ultrasound speed and an ultrasonic map can be provided typically in tens of micro-seconds (>1000 frames per second). Interestingly, this leap in frame rate is not only a technological breakthrough offering completely new ultrasound imaging modes and open new application, but at such frame rates, it becomes possible to track in real time transient vibrations – known as shear waves – propagating through organs and provides quantitative maps of tissue stiffness whose added value for diagnosis has been recently demonstrated in many fields of radiology.