Centre for Cardiovascular Science, Queen's Medical Research Institute, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH16 4TJ, UK.
Department of Radiology, University of Padua, 35128 Padua, Italy.
Tomography. 2022 Sep 15;8(5):2285-2297. doi: 10.3390/tomography8050191.
Ultrasonic contrast agents are used routinely to aid clinical diagnosis. All premium- and mid-range scanners utilise contrast-specific imaging techniques to preferentially isolate and display the nonlinear signals generated from the microbubbles when insonated with a series of ultrasound pulses. In this manuscript the abilities of four premium ultrasound scanners to detect and display the ultrasound signal from two commercially available contrast agents-SonoVue and DEFINITY-are compared. A flow phantom was built using tubes with internal diameters of 1.6 mm and 3.2 mm, suspended at depths of 1, 5 and 8 cm and embedded in tissue-mimicking material. Dilute solutions of SonoVue and DEFINITY were pumped through the phantom at 0.25 mL/s and 1.5 mL/s. Four transducers were used to scan the tubes-a GE Logiq E9 (C2-9) curvilinear probe, a Philips iU22 L9-3 linear array probe, an Esaote MyLab Twice linear array LA523 (4-13 MHz) and a Fujifilm VisualSonics Vevo3100 MX250 (15-30 MHz) linear array probe. We defined a new parameter to compare the ability of the ultrasound scanners to display the contrast enhancement. This was defined as the ratio of grey-scale intensity ratio in contrast-specific imaging mode relative to the B-mode intensity from the same region-of-interest within the corresponding B-mode image. The study demonstrated that the flow rates used in this study had no effect on the contrast-specific imaging mode to B-mode (CSIM-BM) ratio for the three clinical scanners studied, with SonoVue demonstrating broadly similar CSIM-BM ratios across all 3 clinical scanners. DEFINITY also displayed similar results to SonoVue except when insonated with the Esaote MyLab Twice LA523 transducer, where it demonstrated significantly higher CSIM-BM ratios at superficial depths.
超声造影剂常用于辅助临床诊断。所有高端和中端扫描仪都利用对比特异性成像技术，优先分离和显示微泡在一系列超声脉冲照射下产生的非线性信号。在本文中，比较了四种高端超声扫描仪检测和显示两种市售造影剂-SonoVue 和 DEFINITY 的超声信号的能力。使用内径为 1.6mm 和 3.2mm 的管在深度为 1cm、5cm 和 8cm 处悬浮，并嵌入组织模拟材料中，构建了一个流量体模。以 0.25mL/s 和 1.5mL/s 的速度将 SonoVue 和 DEFINITY 的稀释溶液泵入体模。使用四个换能器扫描管：GE Logiq E9 (C2-9) 凸阵探头、Philips iU22 L9-3 线阵探头、Esaote MyLab Twice 线阵 LA523（4-13MHz）和 Fujifilm VisualSonics Vevo3100 MX250（15-30MHz）线阵探头。我们定义了一个新的参数来比较超声扫描仪显示对比增强的能力。这被定义为对比特异性成像模式下的灰度强度比与相应 B 模式图像中同一感兴趣区域内的 B 模式强度的比值。该研究表明，在所研究的三种临床扫描仪中，该研究中使用的流速对对比特异性成像模式与 B 模式（CSIM-BM）的比值没有影响，SonoVue 在所有 3 种临床扫描仪中显示出大致相似的 CSIM-BM 比值。DEFINITY 也显示出与 SonoVue 相似的结果，但当用 Esaote MyLab Twice LA523 换能器照射时，在较浅的深度显示出明显更高的 CSIM-BM 比值。
