Inter- and intra-reader reproducibility of shear wave elastography measurements for musculoskeletal soft tissue masses
- PDF / 1,784,421 Bytes
- 8 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 24 Downloads / 206 Views
SCIENTIFIC ARTICLE
Inter- and intra-reader reproducibility of shear wave elastography measurements for musculoskeletal soft tissue masses Jonathan Nicholls 1
&
Abdulrahman M. Alfuraih 2,3,4 & Elizabeth M. A. Hensor 2,3 & Philip Robinson 1,2
Received: 27 February 2019 / Revised: 1 July 2019 / Accepted: 12 August 2019 / Published online: 12 December 2019 # The Author(s) 2019
Abstract Objective To determine inter- and intra-reader reproducibility of shear wave elastography measurements for musculoskeletal soft tissue masses. Materials and methods In all, 64 patients with musculoskeletal soft tissue masses were scanned by two readers prior to biopsy; each taking five measurements of shear wave velocity (m/s) and stiffness (kPa). A single lesion per patient was scanned in transverse and cranio-caudal planes. Depth measurements (cm) and volume (cm3) were recorded for each lesion, for each reader. Linear mixed modelling was performed to assess limits of agreement (LOA), inter- and intra-reader repeatability, including analyses for measured depth and volume. Results Of the 64 lesions scanned, 24 (38%) were malignant. Bland-Altman plots demonstrated negligible bias with wide LOA for all measurements. Transverse velocity was the most reliable measure—intraclass correlation (95% CI) = 0.917 (0.886, 1)— though reader 1 measures could be between 38% lower and 57% higher than reader 2 [ratio-scale bias (95% LOA) = 0.99 (0.64, 1.55)]. Repeatability coefficients indicated most disagreement resulted from poor within-reader reproducibility. LOA between readers calculated from means of five repeated measurements were narrower—transverse velocity ratio-scale bias (95% LOA) = 1.00 (0.74, 1.35). Depth affected both estimated velocity and repeatability; volume also affected repeatability. Conclusion This study found poor repeatability of measurements with wide LOA due mostly to intra-reader variability. Transverse velocity was the most reliable measure; variability may be affected by lesion depth. At least five measurements should be reported with LOA to assist future comparability between shear wave elastography systems in evaluating soft tissue masses. Keywords Elastography . Ultrasound . Muscles . Medical imaging . Reliability
Introduction Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00256-019-03300-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Philip Robinson [email protected] 1
Musculoskeletal Centre X-Ray Department, Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust, Chapel Allerton Hospital, Chapeltown Road, Leeds LS7 4SA, UK
2
NIHR Leeds Biomedical Research Centre, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Leeds, UK
3
Leeds Institute of Rheumatic and Musculoskeletal Medicine, Chapel Allerton Hospital, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK
4
Radiology and Medical Imaging Department, College of Applied Medical Sciences, Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University, Kharj, Saudi Arabia
Shear wave elastography (SWE) offers a novel approach in the investigation of musculo
Data Loading...
