Browsing by Author "Leote, Joao"
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- Influence of ultrasound settings on laboratory vertical artifactsPublication . Leote, Joao; Muxagata, Tiago; Guerreiro, Diana; Francisco, Cláudia; Dias, Hermínia Brites; Loução, Ricardo; Bacariza, Jacobo; Gonzalez, FilipeObjective: The aim of the work described here was to analyze the relationship between the change in ultrasound (US) settings and the vertical artifacts' number, visual rating, and signal intensity METHODS: An in vitro phantom consisting of a damp sponge and gelatin mix was created to simulate vertical artifacts. Furthermore, several US parameters were changed sequentially (i.e., frequency, dynamic range, line density, gain, power, and image enhancement) and after image acquisition. Five US experts rated the artifacts for number and quality. In addition, a vertical artifact visual score was created to determine the higher artifact rating ("optimal") and the lower artifact rating ("suboptimal"). Comparisons were made between the tested US parameters and baseline recordings. Results: The expert intraclass correlation coefficient for the number of vertical artifacts was 0.694. The parameters had little effect on the "optimal" vertical artifacts but changed their number. Dynamic range increased the number of discernible vertical artifacts to 3 from 36 to 102 dB. Conclusion: The intensity did not correlate with the visual rating score. Most of the available US parameters did not influence vertical artifacts.
- Total signal intensity of ultrasound laboratory vertical artifacts: a semi-quantitative toolPublication . Leote, Joao; Loução, Ricardo; Aguiar, Madalena; Tavares, Mariana; Ferreira, Paloma; Muxagata, Tiago; Guerreiro, Diana; Dias, Hermínia Brites; Bacariza, Jacobo; Gonzalez, FilipeQuantitative approaches to improve lung ultrasound (LUS) vertical artifacts (VA) interpretation using total signal intensity (ITOT) are not widely available for clinical practice. In this study, we aimed to i) develop a mathematical algorithm to extract ITOT as a post-hoc LUS analysis and ii) confirm ITOT utility by conducting laboratory VA research using an in vitro model with different acoustic channels. The ITOT was extracted from static and conventional LUS imaging recorded from in vitro models after varying the amount of water content or the pores size of the phantom, compared to a control condition. The defined algorithm was able to calculate the ITOT from all phantoms. Mean ITOT showed statistically significantly different values across phantom categories. We demonstrate that ITOT may be able to differentiate the in vitro acoustic channels formed by increased water content from those with small size pores. However, the utility of this semi-quantitative tool in clinical practice or other LUS imaging data sets remains unclear.