Ultrasound International Open

Purpose Handheld ultrasound (HH-US) answers simple clinical questions in emergencies. We performed conventional US with HH-US at the patient's bedside (BED) during a medical visit (MED) (BED MED-US). The purpose of this prospective study is to estimate BED MED-US reliability, its clinical impact in helping the clinician to formulate correct diagnoses, and its ability to save time and money. Materials and Methods 1007 patients (519 M; age:76.42) were assessed (from March 2021 to November 2022) in one or more districts...

Purpose  To provide an overview on education, training, practice requirements, and fields of application of neurosonology in Europe and beyond. Materials and Methods  National representatives and experts in neurosonology were surveyed regarding neurosonology requirements and practice in their countries. Descriptive statistics were used to report the data. Results  Between February 1 and March 31, 2023, 42/46 (91.3%) national representatives responded to our questionnaire and the completion rate was 100%...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

Purpose Ultrasound examinations are often criticized for having higher examiner dependency compared to other imaging techniques. Compared to free-text reporting, structured reporting (SR) of head and neck sonography (HNS) achieves superior time efficiency as well as report quality. However, there are no findings concerning the influence of SR on the interrater reliability (IRR) of HNS. Materials and Methods Typical pathologies (n=4) in HNS were documented by video/images by two certified head and neck ultrasound instructors...

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of the study was to assess the efficacy of local ultrasound-guided methotrexate injection in patients with caesarean section scar pregnancy, to chart the course of beta-human chorionic gonadotropin levels (HCG) after treatment, and to see if HCG levels are correlated with clinical presentation. METHODS: Between May 2018 and January 2021, data were collected retrospectively from the Early Pregnancy Unit of a tertiary hospital. RESULTS: Our clinic assessed 20 patients; one disputed terminating the pregnancy and was not included in the research...

Objectives The discrimination of ovarian lesions presents a significant problem in everyday clinical practice with ultrasonography appearing to be the most effective diagnostic technique. The aim of our study was to externally evaluate the performance of different diagnostic models when applied by examiners with various levels of experience. Methods This was a diagnostic accuracy study including women who were admitted for adnexal masses, between July 2018 and April 2021, to a Greek tertiary oncology center...

Purpose Blood flow dynamics represent a diagnostic criterion for many diseases. However, no established reference standard is available. In clinical practice, ultrasound pulsed-wave Doppler (PW-Doppler) is frequently used to assess visceral blood flow, despite its well-known limitations. A quantitative analysis of conventional color Doppler patterns can be performed using an innovative ultrasound-based algorithm (pixel flow analysis, PFA). This tool already shows promising results in obstetrics, but the technique has not yet been evaluated for portal venous blood flow assessment...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1055/a-1961-9100.].

Due to the severity of their disease, palliative care patients often present complex clinical symptoms and complaints like pain, shortness of breath, nausea, loss of appetite, and fatigue. Solely relying on the information available from the history and physical examination often causes uncertainty among palliative care physicians regarding treatment decisions during home visits, potentially leading to unnecessary hospitalizations or transfer to cross-sectional imaging in radiological practices. A rational approach is essential to avoid diagnostic aggressiveness while still providing the imaging information required for optimal palliative care...

Purpose The aims of this study were to prospectively assess the diagnostic accuracy of a bespoke multiorgan point-of-care ultrasound approach for suspected pulmonary embolism and evaluate if this model allows reduced referral to further radiation diagnostics while maintaining safety standards. Materials and Methods Patients with suspected pulmonary embolism referred for CT pulmonary angiography or ventilation/perfusion scintigraphy were included as a convenience sample. All patients were subject to blinded ultrasound investigation with cardiac, lung, and deep venous ultrasound...

In this study we propose a model for building a holographic ultrasound microscope. In this model two mobile phones are first connected by waves and techniques like the WhatsApp waves. If the mobile phones are close to each other, their inductors and speakers become entangled, they exchange electromagnetic and sound waves, and they vibrate many times with each other. Objects placed between two mobile phones change the sound waves and electromagnetic waves and appear as holographic images within the inductors and also on the plastic of the speakers...

Purpose Neurosonography evaluation of neonatal hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) is mainly qualitative. We aimed to quantitatively compare the echogenicity of several brain regions in patients with HIE to healthy controls. Materials and Methods 20 term neonates with clinical/MRI evidence of HIE and 20 term healthy neonates were evaluated. Seven brain regions were assessed [frontal, parietal, occipital, and perirolandic white matter (WM), caudate nucleus head, lentiform nucleus, and thalamus]. The echogenicity of the calvarial bones (bone) and the choroid plexus (CP) was used for ratio calculation...

Purpose Doppler ultrasound (DUS) is widely used to detect vascular complications after pediatric liver transplantation (LT). This study aimed to assess the moment of first detection of vascular complications with DUS, and to determine the positive predictive value (PPV) of DUS. Materials and Methods Patients aged 0-18 years who underwent LT between 2015 and 2019 were retrospectively included. 92 LTs in 83 patients were included (median age: 3.9 years, interquartile range: 0.7-10.5). Patients underwent perioperative (intra-operative and immediately postoperative) and daily DUS surveillance during the first postoperative week, and at 1, 3, and 12 months...

It is my great pleasure to welcome the first issue of Ultrasound International Open in 2022 even though 2023 is approaching.

Different surgical and medical specialists increasingly use head and neck ultrasound and ultrasound-guided interventions as part of their clinical practice. We need to ensure high quality and standardized practice across specialties, and this position paper of the European Federation of Societies for Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology (EFSUMB) describes the training requirements for head and neck ultrasound. Traditionally, a minimum number of ultrasound examinations indicates competence, but this is unreliable, and a general shift towards competence-based training is ongoing...

Purpose Transabdominal ultrasound (US) and magnetic resonance enterography (MRE) are used to assess disease activity and extent in IBD, but their impact on therapeutic decisions is unclear. Therefore, our study has two goals: to compare the usefulness of US and MRE in assessing disease extent and activity in the small and large bowel, and to determine the relevance for clinical decisions in IBD. Materials and Methods We included 54 IBD patients who had undergone both MRE and US within three months. We used the construct reference standard model to compare MRE and US for detecting inflammation and examined the impact on clinical decisions in IBD patients...

Purpose Gastrointestinal ultrasound (GIUS) is a noninvasive imaging technique that may be used to study physiological changes in the small bowel. The aim of the study was to investigate the feasibility of measuring blood flow (BF) in the superior mesenteric artery (SMA) and regional motility in the small bowel with GIUS before and after a test meal and to compare ultrasound parameters to demographic factors such as age, sex, height, weight, and smoking habits. Materials and Methods 122 healthy volunteers aged 20 to 80 were examined after an overnight fast...

Purpose To compare the outcomes of different mammographic lesions based on the presence of an ultrasound (US) correlate and to estimate how often targeted US can identify such lesions. Materials and Methods This retrospective study included all consecutive cases from 2010 to 2016, with Breast Imaging Reporting and Database System (BI-RADS) categories 4 & 5 who underwent US as part of their diagnostic workup. We compared the incidence of malignancy between lesions comprising a US correlate that underwent US-guided core needle biopsy (CNB) and those without a correlate that underwent stereotactic CNB...