Schneebeli Alessandro, Del Grande Filippo, Vincenzo Gabriele, Cescon Corrado, Barbero Marco
Rehabilitation Research Laboratory 2rLab, Department of Business Economics, Health and Social Care, University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland, Stabile piazzetta, Via violino, 6928, Manno, Switzerland.
Servizio di Radiologia del Sottoceneri, sede Ospedale Regionale di Lugano, Ente Ospedaliero Cantonale (EOC), Lugano, Switzerland.
Skeletal Radiol. 2017 Nov;46(11):1553-1558. doi: 10.1007/s00256-017-2748-9. Epub 2017 Aug 22.
To evaluate the test-retest reliability of the ultrasound echo intensity parameters on healthy Achilles tendon using a semi-automatic tracing procedure.
Eighteen healthy volunteers participated. B-mode images were acquired in the transverse plane (mid-tendon; insertion) and used to analyze tendon echogenicity. Grayscale distribution of the pixels within the selected ROIs was represented as a histogram. Descriptive statistics of the grayscale distribution (mean, variance, skewness, kurtosis, and entropy) and parameters from the co-occurrence matrix (contrast, energy, and homogeneity) were calculated.
Reliability of echo intensity parameters of the mid-Achilles tendon ranged from high to very high with an ICC of 0.94 for echogenicity, 0.87 for variance, 0.80 for skewness, 0.72 for kurtosis, 0.89 for entropy, 0.90 for contrast, 0.91 for energy, and 0.93 for homogeneity, while for tendon insertion they ranged from moderate to high with an ICC of 0.74 for echogenicity, 0.88 for variance, 0.75 for skewness, 0.55 for kurtosis, 0.87 for entropy, 0.70 for contrast, 0.77 for energy, and 0.56 for homogeneity.
Ultrasound echo intensity is a reliable technique to characterize the internal structure of the Achilles tendon.
采用半自动追踪程序评估健康跟腱超声回声强度参数的重测信度。
18名健康志愿者参与研究。在横向平面（肌腱中部；止点处）采集B超图像，用于分析肌腱回声性。所选感兴趣区域内像素的灰度分布以直方图表示。计算灰度分布的描述性统计量（均值、方差、偏度、峰度和熵）以及共生矩阵的参数（对比度、能量和同质性）。
跟腱中部回声强度参数的信度从高到非常高，回声性的组内相关系数（ICC）为0.94，方差为0.87，偏度为0.80，峰度为0.72，熵为0.89，对比度为0.90，能量为0.91，同质性为0.93；而肌腱止点处的信度从中等到高，回声性的ICC为0.74，方差为0.88，偏度为0.75，峰度为0.55，熵为0.87，对比度为0.70，能量为0.77，同质性为0.56。
超声回声强度是表征跟腱内部结构的可靠技术。
