1. Feasibility of non-linear beamforming ultrasound methods to characterize and size kidney stones.
- Author
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Hsi RS, Schlunk SG, Tierney JE, Dei K, Jones R, George M, Karve P, Duddu R, and Byram BC
- Subjects
- Aged, Algorithms, Feasibility Studies, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Nonlinear Dynamics, Pattern Recognition, Automated methods, Pilot Projects, Prospective Studies, Tomography, X-Ray Computed, Kidney Calculi diagnostic imaging, Ultrasonography methods
- Abstract
Purpose: Ultrasound methods for kidney stone imaging suffer from poor sensitivity and size overestimation. The study objective was to demonstrate feasibility of non-linear ultrasound beamforming methods for stone imaging, including plane wave synthetic focusing (PWSF), short-lag spatial coherence (SLSC) imaging, mid-lag spatial coherence (MLSC) imaging with incoherent compounding, and aperture domain model image reconstruction (ADMIRE)., Materials and Methods: The ultrasound techniques were evaluated in an in vitro kidney stone model and in a pilot study of 5 human stone formers (n = 6 stones). Stone contrast, contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR), sizing, posterior shadow contrast, and shadow width sizing were compared among the different techniques and to B-mode. CT imaging within 60 days was considered the gold standard stone size. Paired t-tests using Bonferroni correction were performed to evaluate comparing each technique with B-mode., Results: Mean CT measured stone size was 6.0mm (range 2.9-12.2mm) with mean skin-to-stone distance 10.2cm (range 5.4-16.3cm). Compared to B-mode, stone contrast was best with ADMIRE (mean +12.2dB), while SLSC and MLSC showed statistically improved CNR. Sizing was best with ADMIRE (mean +1.3mm error), however this was not significantly improved over B-mode (+2.4mm). PWSF performed similarly to B-mode for stone contrast, CNR, SNR, and stone sizing. In the in vitro model, the shadow contrast was highest with ADMIRE (mean 10.5 dB vs 3.1 dB with B-mode). Shadow sizing was best with SLSC (mean error +0.9mm ± 2.9), however the difference compared to B-mode was not significant., Conclusions: The detection and sizing of stones are feasible with advanced beamforming methods with ultrasound. ADMIRE, SLSC, and MLSC hold promise for improving stone detection, shadow contrast, and sizing., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
- Published
- 2018
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