Abstract:

Objective   To explore the different physical factors affecting the intensity of the twinkling artifact in order to guide its clinical use. Methods   The sandpapers were selected as the phantom to qualify the roughness condition and water was selected as the acoustic window to conduct color-doppler imaging ultrasonography. All the selected parameters were changed respectively according to the principle of single variable. The optimized parameter settings were determined and used in the four different kinds of the sandpapers. All the above-mentioned data were saved and analyzed by Matlab software. The two-tail t test, one factor analysis of variance (ANOVA) and curved regression analysis were used for the comparison. Results   The optimized condition for the display of the twinkling artifact were as follows: the highest color write priority and color gain, which were just below the threshold mentioneded under for color noise, a maximum wall-filter under a higher pulse repetition frequency, a focus depth setting below the sandpaper and a color box adjusted properly in the fundamental imaging mode (P<0.05). The intensity of the twinkling artifact was in direct proportion to the roughness of the sandpaper(r=0.912， P<0.001). Conclusion   The parameter settings and the roughness of the sandpaper are found to affect the intensity of the twinkling artifact. It is of great significance to grasping the mechanism of these parameters for the improvement of the twinkling artifact in clinical use and research.

Key words: Twinkling artifact; Color doppler imaging; Parameter; Roughness