Clinical application of surface mode on three-dimensional ultrasonography: a preliminary study

To investigate the methology and evaluate the clinical value of surface mode on three-dimensional ultrasonography (3DUS) in static anatomical structures, 62 patients with various diseases were studied. The equipment used here was Voluson 530D 3DUS imaging system and 3D volume transducer with frequency being 3.0-5.0 MHz. The 3DUS rendering method was surface mode. The results showed that: 1) Surface mode of 3DUS could demonstrate clearly the anatomical characteristics of the region-of-interest (ROI) and the inner wall of lesions or organs that contained fluid. The anatomic details, such as location, size, shape, and number of the ROI, could be visualized intuitively; 2) The outer anatomic features (e.g. contour, edge, configuration, etc.) of some organs or lesions surrounded by fluid could be displayed clearly. It could be concluded that surface mode on 3DUS could provide more diagnostic information than two-dimensional ultrasonography (2DUS) in some cases and could served as a beneficial supplement to 2DUS in clinical practice.