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The sonographic twinkling artifact in testicular calcification
Elizabeth A O'Flynn1, Paul S Sidhu
1Department of Radiology, King's College Hospital, London, England.
Objective:
The twinkling artifact is a color Doppler phenomenon that appears as a rapidly fluctuating red and blue Doppler signal behind a strongly reflecting medium, manifesting as a color signal but without real flow behind the structures. To the untrained eye, the twinkling artifact may lead to the misdiagnosis of vascular flow within a structure. Our objective was to show the occurrence of the twinkling artifact in the testis.
Methods:
Two patients with calcification in the testis were examined with standard settings on 2 different sonography machines to show this artifact.
Results:
Calcification in the tunica albuginea and intratesticular macrocalcification both showed this artifact.
Conclusions:
We report the presence of the twinkling artifact in 2 cases of testicular calcification, which shows that this phenomenon can occur in the testis.
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