Ultrasound elastography of pulmonary lesions - a feasibility study
B R Adamietz1, P A Fasching2, S Jud2
1Institute of Radiology, University of Erlangen.
Introduction:
The potential of sonography in the examination of lung tissue is extremely limited by the air-filled alveoles of the lung. Only in special circumstances like pleural adhesion lesions, atelectasis or pneumonia can lung tissue be visualized by B-mode sonography. Real-time elastography was primarily applied to detect and visualize pulmonary lesions.
Methods And Patients:
8 patients with a total of 18 histologically proven metastases of the lung were included. All pulmonary lesions were detected by computed tomography. Sonographic examination was performed with a 7.5 MHz linear transducer (Acuson Antares premium edition, Siemens, Erlangen, Germany), including B-mode and real-time elastography (RTE). The mean distance between pleura and the lesions ranged from 0 to 2.5 cm. Two lesions were located in the upper right lobe, eleven lesions in the lower right and five in the lower left lobe.
Results:
RTE was able to detect and visualize all 18 pulmonary lesions in contrast to B-mode. The size and distance of the lesions from the pleura correlated with the CT findings.
Conclusion:
In contrast to B-mode sonography, RTE is able to detect and visualize peripheral, non-pleural adherent pulmonary lesions.
