Keywords:
Musculoskeletal soft tissue, Oncology, Ultrasound, Ultrasound-Power Doppler, Contrast agent-intravenous, Neoplasia
Authors:
A. De Marchi, S. Pozza, E. Brach del Prever, P. De Petro, P. Balocco, R. Piana, A. Linari, C. Faletti; Turin/IT
DOI:
10.1594/ecr2013/C-0983
Methods and Materials
A retrospective cohort series of 207 patients from January 2009 to December 2010 (range 18-83) with soft tissue masses of limbs and trunk were studied by US,
PD and CEUS: the intravenous contrast agent was SonoVue® (Bracco,
Milano,
Italy).
We used a Teknos MPX and MyLab 70 equipment (Esaote,
Genova,
Italy) equipped with a wideband (5-10 MHz) linear array transducer.
Each study consisted of conventional grey-scale sonography to visualize the lesion,
followed by contrast- enhanced low-mechanical index (MI: 0.08,
40 Kp) real time examination,
after manual injection of one bolus of SonoVue via a 20 gauge intravenous cannula placed in an antecubital vein.
The microbubble of the contrast medium are purely intravascular,
without any interstitial phase,
so their presence is always a reflection of the vascular pool.
After contrast injection ,
continuous cine-loops of 2 minute length were acquired.
All patients gave their informed consent.
Each lesion was scored on the following characteristics in a qualitative study to estimate the perfusion pattern: presence or absence of vascularization,
homogenous or inhomogenous enhancement with avascular areas,
peripheric enhancement,
spare intralesion vessels and lesion’s vascular time.
In all cases the histological diagnosis was done on surgical definitive specimens or on biopsy.
The CEUS vascular patterns were compared with the histological results.