Ultrasound Elastography of Pulmonary Lesions - A Feasibility Study

Introduction: The potential of sonography in the examination of lung tissue is extremely limited by the air-filled alveoles of the lung. Only in special circumstances like pleural adhesion lesions, atelectasis or pneumonia can lung tissue be visualized by B-mode sonography. Real-time elastography was primarily applied to detect and visualize pulmonary lesions. Methods and Patients: 8 patients with a total of 18 histologically proven metastases of the lung were included. All pulmonary lesions were detected by computed tomography. Sonographic examination was performed with a 7.5MHz linear transducer (Acuson Antares premium edition, Siemens, Erlangen, Germany), including B-mode and real-time elastography (RTE). The mean distance between pleura and the lesions ranged from 0 to 2.5 cm. Two lesions were located in the upper right lobe, eleven lesions in the lower right and five in the lower left lobe. Results: RTE was able to detect and visualize all 18 pulmonary lesions in contrast to B-mode. The size and distance of the lesions from the pleura correlated with the CT findings. Conclusion: In contrast to B-mode sonography, RTE is able to detect and visualize peripheral, non-pleural adherent pulmonary lesions.