Evaluation of ultrasound Tissue Velocity Imaging: a phantom study of velocity estimation in skeletal muscle low-level contractions

BMC Medical Imaging

Research Article

Christer Grönlund¹  Frida Lindberg²  Mattias Mårtensson²  Lars-Åke Brodin² 

[1] Department of Biomedical Engineering – R&D, Radiation science, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden;School of Technology and Health, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Huddinge, Sweden;

关键词: Tissue Velocity Imaging;    Ultrasound;    Skeletal muscle;    Phantom evaluation;    Pulse repetition frequency;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2342-13-16

 received in 2012-12-20, accepted in 2013-05-30,  发布年份 2013

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundTissue Velocity Imaging (TVI) is an ultrasound based technique used for quantitative analysis of the cardiac function and has earlier been evaluated according to myocardial velocities. Recent years several studies have reported applying TVI in the analysis of skeletal muscles. Skeletal tissue velocities can be very low. In particular, when performing isometric contractions or contractions of low force level the velocities may be much lower compared to the myocardial tissue velocities.MethodsIn this study TVI was evaluated for estimation of tissue velocities below the typical myocardial velocities. An in-house phantom was used to see how different PRF-settings affected the accuracy of the velocity estimations.ResultsWith phantom peak velocity at 0.03 cm/s the error ranged from 31% up to 313% with the different PRF-settings in this study. For the peak velocities at 0.17 cm/s and 0.26 cm/s there was no difference in error with tested PFR settings, it is kept approximately around 20%.ConclusionsThe results from the present study showed that the PRF setting did not seem to affect the accuracy of the velocity estimation at tissue velocities above 0.17 cm/s. However at lower velocities (0.03 cm/s) the setting was crucial for the accuracy. The PRF should therefore preferable be reduced when the method is applied in low-level muscle contraction.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Lindberg et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2013