Figure 3.
Viscoelastic properties of hepatocellular carcinomas (HCCs) and surrounding background tissue (n = 4). Storage modulus (a) for HCCs and background tissue increased with increasing precompression. The background tissue was highly variable because of different fibrosis grades. Underlying tissue contrast (b) remained relatively constant with compression, but decreased with increasing fibrosis grade (F0, n = 2; F2, n = 1; F4, n = 1). Tan(δ) (c) and tan(δ) tumour-to-background contrast (d) remained relatively constant with increasing compression.