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Quantitative Lung Ultrasound Spectroscopy Applied to the Diagnosis of Pulmonary Fibrosis: The First Clinical Study
IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control ( IF 3.6 ) Pub Date : 2020-07-27 , DOI: 10.1109/tuffc.2020.3012289
Federico Mento , Gino Soldati , Renato Prediletto , Marcello Demi , Libertario Demi

The application of ultrasound imaging to the diagnosis of lung diseases is nowadays receiving growing interest. However, lung ultrasound (LUS) is mainly limited to the analysis of imaging artifacts, such as B-lines, which correlate with a wide variety of diseases. Therefore, the results of LUS investigations remain qualitative and subjective, and specificity is obviously suboptimal. Focusing on the development of a quantitative method dedicated to the lung, in this work, we present the first clinical results obtained with quantitative LUS spectroscopy when applied to the differentiation of pulmonary fibrosis. A previously developed specific multifrequency ultrasound imaging technique was utilized to acquire ultrasound images from 26 selected patients. The multifrequency imaging technique was implemented on the ULtrasound Advanced Open Platform (ULA-OP) platform and an LA533 (Esaote, Florence, Italy) linear-array probe was utilized. RF data obtained at different imaging frequencies (3, 4, 5, and 6 MHz) were acquired and processed in order to characterize B-lines based on their frequency content. In particular, B-line native frequencies (the frequency at which a B-line exhibits the highest intensity) and bandwidth (the range of frequencies over which a B-line shows intensities within −6 dB from its highest intensity), as well as B-line intensity, were analyzed. The results show how the analysis of these features allows (in this group of patients) the differentiation of fibrosis with a sensitivity and specificity equal to 92% and 92%, respectively. These promising results strongly motivate toward the extension of the clinical study, aiming at analyzing a larger cohort of patients and including a broader range of pathologies.

中文翻译:

定量肺超声技术在肺纤维化诊断中的应用:第一个临床研究

如今,超声成像在肺疾病诊断中的应用越来越受到关注。但是,肺部超声(LUS)主要限于分析与许多疾病相关的成像伪影,例如B线。因此,LUS调查的结果仍然是定性和主观的,而且特异性显然不是最佳的。着重研究专用于肺部的定量方法,在这项工作中,我们介绍了定量LUS光谱技术应用于肺纤维化分化时获得的首批临床结果。利用先前开发的特定的多频超声成像技术来获取来自26位选定患者的超声图像。多频成像技术是在ULtrasound高级开放平台(ULA-OP)平台上实施的,并使用了LA533(Esaote,佛罗伦萨,意大利)线性阵列探针。采集并处理在不同成像频率(3、4、5和6 MHz)下获得的RF数据,以便根据B线的频率含量对其进行表征。特别是,B线固有频率(B线显示最高强度的频率)和带宽(B线显示距其最高强度-6 dB以内的强度的频率范围),以及分析B线强度。结果表明,对这些特征的分析如何(在这一组患者中)使纤维化分化的敏感性和特异性分别等于92%和92%。
更新日期:2020-07-27
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