Australasian Journal of Ultrasound in Medicine最新文献

Achilles tendon rupture is a common sports-related injury which can carry significant morbidity to patients. Ultrasound remains the workhorse of imaging as it can confirm and localise the extent of Achilles tendon injury. The sonographic anatomy, both normal and ruptured sonographic appearances, as well as sonographic technique must be appreciated to accurately image and report findings, critical to patient management. Particular attention should be applied to the measurement of the diastasis between acutely ruptured tendon ends as this information can assist with informing the decision of conservative vs. operative management. Further work is necessary to standardise the measurement technique including correlating the degree of plantarflexion of the foot with the sonographic tendon gap measures.

Van der Giessen, H., Wilson, L.C., Coffey, S. and Whalley, G.A. (2020). Review: Detection of patient foramen ovale using transcranial Doppler or standard echocardiography. Australasian Journal of Ultrasound in Medicine 23: 210–219. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajum.12232

The article title should be ‘Review: Detection of patent foramen ovale using transcranial Doppler or standard echocardiography’.

A low-grade appendiceal mucinous neoplasm (LAMN) is a cystic dilatation of the appendix resulting from the accumulation of mucinous secretions caused by a luminal obstruction. Although usually benign, pseudomyxoma peritonei may occur in the event of rupture, and 10% of cases may be secondary to appendiceal cystadenocarcinoma. A LAMN is both more common and more likely to have a malignant association in women, making it an entity with which practitioners of gynaecological ultrasound should be familiar. Although not the primary aim, early pregnancy ultrasound assessments can offer the diagnostic opportunity to identify pelvic pathology. A LAMN can be identified on ultrasonography by visualisation of an adnexal mass separate to the ovary, which due to the layers of secretions has a distinctive appearance previously likened to ‘onion-skin’ or ‘whipped-cream’. Here, we describe an incidental finding of a LAMN during an early pregnancy assessment. Practitioners of early pregnancy ultrasound should be familiar with the characteristic morphology of this rare but important finding.

I am reflecting on my own plans for 2024, and research is definitely on my ‘resolution list’, is it on yours? Perhaps you are thinking of enrolling in a higher research degree? Or you have an idea for a project you've been wanting to get off the ground? Maybe you are sitting on a database that is just waiting to be transformed into a paper that has the potential to explain, inform or, indeed, change practice? If any of these resonate with you, then I encourage you to begin your next, or indeed first, research project.

Every research project starts with a research question, but the methods used vary depending on that question. The study design and approach will be defined by the question, and it is important to remember that there is no one way to undertake ultrasound research. There are many different study approaches: from audits and educational research to outcomes research.

All research starts with data. In this issue of AJUM, Moore et al.¹ take you through the steps needed to mine data from an imaging archive. Most of us have a digital database of images, measurements and reports, but extracting those data in a consistent way, especially when there are free text fields, is not as straightforward as one would think.

When little is known about a condition, research often takes the form of clinical audit of cases or case series. We have three distinct examples of this in this AJUM issue: Hosokawa et al.² compare the detection of submandibular sialoliths by ultrasound with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT), while Boman et al.³ present a small case series demonstrating a potential role for ultrasound to detect small vessel inflammation as a pre-curser to rheumatic vasculitis. Lastly, Walsh and Lees⁴ present a clinical audit of over 3000 consecutive routine mid-semester obstetric scans and report the proportion of major and minor abnormalities. There are two important points to note within this study, which speak to the veracity of the data: this is a single operator clinic such that the ultrasound approach was likely consistent over the time period, and they included consecutive patients. Clinical research should be undertaken using consecutive patients, which ensures all eligible patients are recruited. When non-consecutive, or convenience, sampling is used, I often wonder why they were excluded. Because of image quality? Because their results were outliers—not aligned to the researchers' bias?

It is often said that the strongest form of evidence, after the randomised clinical trial, is meta-analysis or systematic review because all the available evidence is presented in a summative and unbiased manner. One such review by Giri et al.⁵ considered the data related to contrast-enhanced ultrasound for differentiation of benign and malignant portal vei