In vivo thyroid vibro-acoustography: a pilot study

BMC Medical Imaging

Mostafa Fatemi¹  James F Greenleaf¹  Randall R Kinnick¹  Carl C Reading²  John C Morris³  Matthew W Urban¹  Azra Alizad⁴ 

[1] Department of Physiology and Biomedical Engineering, Mayo Clinic, 200 First Street SW, Rochester, MN, 55905, USA;Department of Radiology, Mayo Clinic, 200 First Street SW, Rochester, MN, 55905, USA;Division of Endocrinology, Department of Internal Medicine, Mayo Clinic, 200 First Street SW, Rochester, MN, 55905, USA;Department of Internal Medicine, Mayo Clinic, 200 First Street SW, Rochester, MN, 55905, USA

关键词: Imaging;    Ultrasound;    Thyroid nodule;    Thyroid neoplasm;    Vibro-acoustography;    Elasticity imaging techniques;   

Others  :  1091205
DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2342-13-12

 received in 2012-11-14, accepted in 2013-03-21,  发布年份 2013

【 摘 要 】

Background

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the utility of a noninvasive ultrasound-based method, vibro-acoustography (VA), for thyroid imaging and determine the feasibility and challenges of VA in detecting nodules in thyroid.

Methods

Our study included two parts. First, in an in vitro study, experiments were conducted on a number of excised thyroid specimens randomly taken from autopsy. Three types of images were acquired from most of the specimens: X-ray, B-mode ultrasound, and vibro-acoustography. The second and main part of the study includes results from performing VA and B-mode ultrasound imaging on 24 human subjects with thyroid nodules. The results were evaluated and compared qualitatively.

Results

In vitro vibro-acoustography images displayed soft tissue structures, microcalcifications, cysts and nodules with high contrast and no speckle. In this group, all of US proven nodules and all of X-ray proven calcifications of thyroid tissues were detected by VA. In vivo results showed 100% of US proven calcifications and 91% of the US detected nodules were identified by VA, however, some artifacts were present in some cases.

Conclusions

In vitro and in vivo VA images show promising results for delineating the detailed structure of the thyroid, finding nodules and in particular calcifications with greater clarity compare to US. Our findings suggest that, with further development, VA may be a suitable imaging modality for clinical thyroid imaging.

【 授权许可】

   
2013 Alizad et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

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