I am pleased to inform readers that our journal is now more popular than ever before, certainly from the author’s perspective. Until the middle of this year, we have had more submissions than any similar period before. In this August issue, we bring you six original works and two interesting case reports.
Ooi and colleagues examined 45 Achilles tendons from as many patients (33 males, 12 females; mean age 51years) using sonoelastography (SE) and ultrasound (US) at baseline, 4–6 weeks, 6 months and 12 months post-treatment. They obtained strain ratio (between Achilles tendon and Kager’s fat) during SE, which appeared to be able to depict Achilles tendon stiffness up to one year following platelet-rich plasma injection and rehabilitation treatment. Stiffness of the Achilles tendon showed better correlation with clinical symptoms compared to B-mode and colour Doppler ultrasound findings. To confirm these preliminary findings, larger scale randomised controlled studies will be needed.
Jackson’s group present their work with the use of a custom built jig to draw the probe along the surface of a Gammex 403 phantom, with the image plane parallel to the filaments wires within the phantom. Their method seems to be a precise, reproducible method for measuring US probe slice thickness for linear array US probe. The method was able to provide information about the slice thickness of different sections of the probe face. It is expected that the method can quantify changes in probe performance due to lens wear or replacement over time that may elude both in-plane and in-air reverberation-based tests.
Kennedy et al. used a ‘novice’ examiner to capture US videos of transversus abdominis in a single session in healthy participants (n = 33). Freehand US featured uncontrolled probe force, inclination and roll, whilst probe force device method (PFDM) US standardized these parameters. The authors report that standardised PFDM US improved intra-rater reliability through reduced sources of measurement error.
Gray and colleagues studied a total of 72 women, of which 20 were healthy volunteers in order to detect bladder shape changes measured using trans-abdominal ultrasound (TA-USS). They found that transverse view of the bladder provided the most reliable plane to characterise and measure bladder shape and concluded that bladder shape testing may serve as a non-invasive diagnostic tool to identify involuntary bladder contractions in patients with overactive bladder syndrome. This method should now be tried in a double blind trial to eliminate the effects of prior knowledge of diagnosis.
Dudley examined images from 65 patients aiming to investigate the differences between ellipse fitting and derived fetal head and abdominal circumferences in clinical practice. He concluded that methods of fetal circumference measurement are not interchangeable, that is may not yield the same values. The derived method should be used where size, growth and estimated weight charts are based on this method. Whether these differences in measurement obtained from different methods affect diagnosis or clinical outcome remains to be seen.
Sernik et al. evaluated 193 patients with shoulder pain to correlate the thickness of the axillary recess capsule measured by US with MRI signs of adhesive capsulitis (AC). They concluded that a thickness greater than 2.0 mm of the axillary recess capsule measured by US correlates to MRI signs of AC with good sensitivity and specificity.
Nabati et al. report an interesting case of congenital intra-mitral ring and Agarwal et al. report an interesting case of a fetus with micromelia, thoracic dysplasia and polydactyly detected on prenatal sonography.
Before I end, I hope that you would continue to encourage your colleagues and friends to submit and showcase their work in our journal.