Badea Radu, Ciobanu Lidia
Ultrasonography Department, 3rd Medical Clinic, Regional Institute of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, “Iuliu Haţeganu” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
Med Ultrason. 2012 Dec;14(4):307-17.
Normal and pathological vascularization can be examined using imaging methods. The use of contrast agents (CA), tracers or markers within the bloodstream, has gained more and more applications in the last years. The dynamics of the CA passing through a region of interest is directly correlated with the morphological and functional characteristics of the bloodstream in that particular area. Doppler ultrasonography provides information only regarding the flow within large vessels, the method having limited spatial resolution and sensitivity in the assessment of the capillary flow. Contrast-enhanced ultrasonography (CEUS) enables the detection of very slow blood flow or stagnating blood in vessels measuring as little as 40 microns. This feature is extremely valuable in the characterization of a circulatory bed and for the evaluation of the tumoral angiogenesis process. CEUS may be used both for diagnosis and for the assessment of treatment efficiency. Further on various aspects regarding this method, its advantages and limitations and arguments for its systematic use in oncology, will be presented in this review.
可以使用成像方法检查正常和病理性血管生成。近年来，在血流中使用造影剂（CA）、示踪剂或标记物的应用越来越广泛。CA通过感兴趣区域的动态变化与该特定区域血流的形态和功能特征直接相关。多普勒超声仅提供有关大血管内血流的信息，该方法在评估毛细血管血流时空间分辨率和灵敏度有限。超声造影（CEUS）能够检测到直径小至40微米的血管中非常缓慢的血流或停滞的血液。这一特性在循环床的特征描述和肿瘤血管生成过程的评估中极具价值。CEUS可用于诊断和治疗效果评估。本文将进一步阐述关于该方法的各个方面、其优点和局限性以及在肿瘤学中系统使用该方法的依据。
