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Ultrasound innovations are to provide consultants with greater detail in diagnostic information
The future of ultrasound lies in Acoustic Radiation Force Imaging (ARFI) and elasticity imaging techniques which will dramatically change diagnostic imaging.
As over 270 sonographers and consultants came together for the Siemens Healthcare workshop at Euroson 2009, the ARFI provided the platform for discussion.
The discussion made reference to the Siemens’ Virtual Touch application on the ACUSON S2000 ultrasound system. Adding a new parameter to diagnostic ultrasound information, Virtual Touch is the first commercially available implementation of ARFI.
It is highly beneficial for deep tissue imaging, including the liver. The accuracy it achieves with deep tissue also makes it ideal for larger patients and has the potential to reduce biopsies by providing a greater level of information in one examination.
An acoustic ‘push pulse’ sequence to compress tissue and to create a relative stiffness map for any region of interest is used in the Siemens’ Virtual Touch application. Its tissue quantification feature is the first and only application to provide a numerical value of shear wave speed related to tissue stiffness at a precise anatomical location.
Elasticity imaging gauges how much tissue moves when pushed, so that it can detect how soft or stiff an object is. Made possible by eSie Touch™ on the S2000 ultrasound, elasticity imaging is an up-and-coming technique that has the potential to reduce the number of biopsies carried out by detecting benign lesions with greater accuracy.
Declan Dunphy, Ultrasound Product Manager at Siemens Healthcare said “Innovations in tissue imaging are changing the way we use ultrasound and these emerging techniques mark an exciting milestone in the development of this modality.”
