薮内 以和夫¹, 松田 康雄², 位藤 俊一³

Iwao YABUUCHI¹, Yasuo MATSUDA², Toshikazu ITO³

¹大手前病院内科, ²大手前病院外科, ³りんくう総合医療センター外科

¹Department of Internal Medicine, Otemae Hospital, ²Department of Surgery, Otemae Hospital, ³Department of Surgery Rinku General Medical Center

キーワード : contrast enhanced ultrasonography, flash echo imaging, ultrasound, hepatic harmonic imaging, tumor

造影超音波検査対応でない, 普及型の超音波診断装置を用いてLevovist^®の映像化を試みた. このような超音波診断装置においても, カラー又はパワードプラ法で, バブル崩壊に値する音響パワーが出力できるようにし, 通常より高めに設定したclutter filterにて, バブル崩壊によるランダムで激しいドプラ偏移のみを検出する条件に近づければ, 擬似ドプラシグナルとしてLevovist^®の検出が可能であった. さらに間歇的な送信を行うことにより, vascular imageのみならず, perfusion imageの描出も可能と考えられた.

A new second harmonic imaging technique can detect intravenously administered contrast agent, Levovist^®. This method requires high-grade ultrasound equipment and an imaging mode designed specifically for contrast study. However, we visualized the Levovist^® signal itself with ordinary ultrasound equipment without a harmonic-imaging mode. These commonly utilized ultrasound equipment are routinely used for conventional B mode and color and power Doppler imaging. We designed a set of new conditions requiring only a broadband probe and machine settings of greater than usual acoustic power, clutter filter level, and velocity range to detect stimulated acoustic emission signals. Ordinary Generally speaking, vascular images with color or power Doppler mode were not visualized under these conditions. We obtained not only vascular images in the early vascular phase under these conditions, but, after injection of Levovist^®, perfusion images of hepatic tumors of a quality equal to that of tumor stains obtained in angiographic studies.