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Ultrasound elastography is a simple non-invasive method for measuring tissue elasticity in relation to tissue fibrosis. The aim of this study was to compare echogenicity, volume and shear wave velocities of undescended vs normally descended testes.

BACKGROUND: Musculoskeletal ultrasound has the advantages of non-invasiveness, real-time dynamics and good repeatability, and has been gradually used in the diagnosis of lateral epicondylalgia. However, its diagnosis accuracy has not been confirmed. OBJECTIVE: To explore the accuracy of musculoskeletal ultrasound in the diagnosis of lateral epicondylalgia for providing evidence for clinical practice. METHODS: The trials about musculoskeletal ultrasound in the diagnosis of lateral epicondylalgia were searched in the databases of PubMed, EMbase, The Cochrane Library(Issue 6, 2018), CNKI, CBM and WanFang from inception to June 1, 2018. Two researchers independently screened literatures according to inclusion and exclusion criteria, extracted data, and assessed the risk of bias of included studies by using the Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies tool. Then meta-analysis was performed by using Meta-Disc 1.4 software and Stata 12.0 tool. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Seventeen articles were included. The random effects model was used to analyze the heterogeneity among the results of studies. The subgroup results of meta-analysis showed that the pooled sensitivity, specificity for gray-scale ultrasonography diagnosis lateral epicondylalgia was 0.81(95%CI 0.76 to 0.85), 0.79(95%CI 0.73 to 0.85), respectively. The pooled sensitivity, and specificity for gray-scale ultrasonography combined power Doppler ultrasonography diagnosis lateral epicondylalgia was 0.69(95%CI 0.64 to 0.73), and 0.82(95%CI 0.76 to 0.86), respectively. In summary, gray-scale ultrasonography holds high sensitivity and specificity in the diagnosis of lateral epicondylalgia. But it still needs more studies to validate the result because the limitation of quality and quantity of the included studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to determine whether twinkling artifact (TA) detected on color Doppler ultrasonography can effectively determine the presence of pleural calcification compared with computed tomography (CT) and differentiate tuberculous pleuritis (TP) and cancerous pleuritis (CP). One hundred six cases of TP and 26 cases of CP were scanned using gray-scale ultrasonography (GSU) and TA to determine the presence of pleural calcification. With CT as the reference standard, 63.3% and 79.6% of patients with pleural calcification were identified with GSU and TA, respectively. The detection rate of TA was higher than that of GSU (p = 0.039). For the whole study population, 37.1% were identified as having pleural calcification with CT, significantly higher than the proportion detected with GSU (25.8%, p = 0.001), but not different from that detected with TA (41.7%, p = 0.327). The sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of TA were 79.6%, 80.7%, 80.3%, 70.9% and 87.0%, respectively. The detection rate of TA was significantly higher than that of GSU (p <0.001). When GSU was combined with TA (GSUTA), the positive rate in the TP group was significantly higher than that in the CP group (χ2 < 0.001). In conclusion, TA is comparable to CT and more sensitive than GSU in the detection of pleural calcification. Evaluation for GSUTA on pleura may help to differentiate TP from CP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]