A Pilot Study on Ultrasound Elastography for Evaluation of Mechanical Characteristics and Oral Strategy of Gels

Ultrasound elastography as a simple and noninvasive method was used to evaluating the texture of gels. Three gellan gum gels with different mechanical characteristics and sonagel which has the similar elastic modulus to that of the human tongue were used. The combination of sonagel and gellan gels was lightly compressed and released cyclically with an ultrasound probe with 1–2 Hz. We obtained the strain for each cycle, and analyzed the results using the maximum values of strains. We found that the strain ratio between the gellan gel and the sonagel increased with the decrease of gellan gel fracture force. And also the oral strategy changes from teeth mastication to tongue–palate compression with the increase in the strain ratio. Strain obtained by ultrasound elastography is revealed as an important parameter that indicates the mechanical characteristics and even oral strategy of gels. Practical Applications Instrumental methods are often used for texture characterization. Normally, probes are made of metal or plastic materials that are much stiffer than foods and completely dissimilar to the tongue. As a noninvasive method, ultrasound tissue elasticity imaging has provided novel diagnostic information regarding tissue diseases. We suggest that ultrasound elastography can be used for food texture evaluation in the present study. It is possible to observe deformation behavior as the tongue–palate compression if the material whose mechanical characteristics is similar to the human tongue was used as an artificial tongue in the method.