Mar 4, 2020 — Journal of Diagnostic Medical Sonography
The Society of Diagnostic Medical Sonography (SDMS) is pleased to announce the publication of a white paper on implementing a liver contrast program in the sonography laboratory in the January/February 2020 issue of the
In 2016 the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) to image and characterize liver lesions as benign or malignant using gray-scale sonography. The technique includes the intravenous (IV) administration of a gas microbubble that the vascular system disperses to the liver, thus enabling liver lesion characterization. With the inclusion of CEUS to live imaging protocols, interpreter accuracy has been shown to improve to 88% over a baseline of 35% with gray-scale sonography alone. Sensitivity and specificity can improve to 83% and 84% from 40% and 63% with gray-scale sonography alone.
The white paper details how contrast enhanced ultrasonography works, the planning required to implement a contrast program in the laboratory, and how to perform the liver contrast exam. The white paper also includes a detailed workflow chart which outlines the steps necessary for a liver contrast exam from the patient checking in at the front desk to disinfecting the transducer and the room prior to the next patient.
Jennifer E. Bagley 1, Talisha M. Hunt 2, Dennis E. Paul 3
1University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Tulsa, OK, USA; 2Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA, 3Consultant, Mountain View, CA, USA
To read the full white paper, go to: https://doi.org/10.1177/8756479319889612
Contact:
Donald Kerns, JD, CAE, Chief Executive Officer/ Executive Director
Society of Diagnostic Medical Sonography; (800) 229-9506; dkerns@sdms.org
