PURPOSE: To investigate the advances and clinical results of the different ultrasound modalities and the progress in combining them into multiparametric UltraSound (mpUS).
METHODS: A systematic literature search on mpUS and the different ultrasound modalities included: greyscale ultrasound, computerized transrectal ultrasound, Doppler and power Doppler techniques, dynamic contrast-enhanced ultrasound and (shear wave) elastography.
RESULTS: Limited research available on combining ultrasound modalities has presented improvement in diagnostic performance. The data of two studies suggest that even adding a lower performing ultrasound modality to a better performing modality using crude methods can already improve the sensitivity by 13-51 %. The different modalities detect different tumours. No study has tried to combine ultrasound modalities employing a system similar to the PIRADS system used for mpMRI or more advanced classifying algorithms.
CONCLUSION: Available evidence confirms that combining different ultrasound modalities significantly improves diagnostic performance.
Written by:
Postema A, Mischi M, de la Rosette J, Wijkstra H. Are you the author?
Department of Urology, Academic Medical Center, Meibergdreef 9, 1105 AZ, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Reference: World J Urol. 2015 Mar 12. Epub ahead of print.
doi: 10.1007/s00345-015-1523-6
PubMed Abstract
PMID: 25761736