Premium
Contrast‐enhanced ultrasound of embolic consolidations in patients with pulmonary embolism: A pilot study
Author(s) -
Bartelt Sybille,
Trenker Corinna,
Görg Christian,
Neesse Albrecht
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of clinical ultrasound
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.272
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1097-0096
pISSN - 0091-2751
DOI - 10.1002/jcu.22313
Subject(s) - medicine , peripheral , pulmonary embolism , contrast enhanced ultrasound , homogeneous , ultrasound , radiology , lung , contrast (vision) , pulmonary angiography , angiography , nuclear medicine , physics , thermodynamics , artificial intelligence , computer science
Purpose To analyze and describe the contrast‐enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) patterns of peripheral lung lesions in patients with pulmonary embolism (PE) confirmed on CT angiography or lung scintigraphy. Methods CEUS had been performed on 35 patients with peripheral lung lesions detected on gray‐scale imaging and confirmed as PE. The following data were evaluated retrospectively: (1) accumulation of contrast medium (absent or present), (2) differentiation between pulmonary arterial (PA) and bronchial arterial blood supply, and (3) contrast‐enhancement pattern (absent/nonhomogeneous or homogeneous). A CEUS pattern of absent or nonhomogeneous enhancement was suspicious (ie, typical) of embolic consolidations (EC), whereas a pattern of homogeneous PA enhancement was considered to be atypical of EC. Results Peripheral lesions showed a CEUS pattern suspicious of EC in 80% of the patients, with no enhancement in 40% and nonhomogeneous enhancement in another 40%. A CEUS pattern of homogeneous PA enhancement, atypical of EC, was identified in the remaining 20% of the patients. Pulmonary lesions larger than 1 cm showed vascularization more often than smaller lesions did ( p < 0.001). Conclusions Peripheral lung lesions in patients with confirmed PE show a CEUS pattern of absent or nonhomogeneous contrast enhancement for suspicious EC. Further prospective studies are required to verify the diagnostic accuracy of CEUS for EC. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Ultrasound 44 :129–135, 2016