Abstract
The aim of the study was to investigate the diagnostic value of the colour Doppler twinkling artefact (TA) in renal stone disease. To enhance the evidence of TA, a preliminary in vitro study was performed to optimise the setting of colour Doppler sonography. In the in vitro study, an oxen kidney was examined using an high-frequency (12.5 MHz) linear array probe in a water bath before and after the inoculation of an aliquot of powder obtained by fragmentation of a calcium oxalate stone. In the clinical study, 67 patients with diagnosis of urinary stone based on B-mode sonography and 67 matched control subjects were examined with colour Doppler sonography using a low-frequency (2.5 MHz) curvilinear phased array probe. In vitro, the injection of calcium oxalate powder in a bovine kidney sample induced the appearance of spots without any back shadowing appearance on B mode but with a large number of TA on colour Doppler. In vivo, TA was much more frequent in patients with stone disease (95.5%) compared to controls (9.0%) (P < 0.001). TA was highly associated to renal stone disease and was also present in renal areas where a stone was undetected with B mode approach suggesting its diagnostic role although further studies are needed to confirm its accuracy. The type of instrumentation and its setting is crucial to obtain reproducible results.
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Turrin, A., Minola, P., Costa, F. et al. Diagnostic value of colour Doppler twinkling artefact in sites negative for stones on B mode renal sonography. Urol Res 35, 313–317 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00240-007-0110-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00240-007-0110-8