DOPPLER TWINKLING ARTIFACT OBSERVATIONS: AN OPEN-ACCESS DATABASE OF RAW ULTRASONIC SIGNALS

Backgraund: Doppler twinkling artifact is a rapid change of colors seen in CFI-mode in the presence of kidney stones, calculi, etc. Therefore some try to use the twinkling artifact as a useful diagnostic sign; however this phenomenon is underresearched, because the majority of assumptions concerning its causes are made on the basis of pure visual observations of the scanners screen living the important steps of signal transformation hidden behind the black box curtains of ultrasound machines. Methods: Raw radiofrequency ultrasound signals were recorded in the phantom studies. The recorded echoes were received from objects which create the Doppler twinkling artifact and also from artificial blood vessels and soft tissues imitators. The data were collected between June 2016 and March 2021. Sonomed-500 with the 7.5 L38 and 3.4 C60 probes served as the research machine for the signal capture. Data records: We present the database containing raw radiofrequency ultrasound signals from the beamformer output of the research ultrasound machine. The dataset consists of CFI and B-mode echoes recorded from twinkling objects. Therefore, this database can be useful for those who test, develop and study ultrasound signal processing algorithms. The database is freely available online. The database consists of echoes received from five phantoms with the total size of 10.5 GB. Raw radiofrequency signals were stored in the binary files; scanning parameters were stored in text files. The database is available at: https://mosmed.ai/datasets/ultrasound_doppler_twinkling_artifact. Code availability: Anyone can study the database with the specially written program called TwinklingDatasetDisplay available at: https://github.com/Center-of-Diagnostics-and-Telemedicine/TwinklingDatasetDisplay.git. Usage notes: The database can be used to test and develop signal-processing algorithms, such as wall filtration, velocity estimation, feature extraction, speckle reduction, etc. Anyone is free to share (copy, distribute, and transmit) and to remix (adapt and make derivative works) the dataset as long as appropriate credit is given.

Twinkling artifact in differential diagnosis of mammary calcinates

Research goal: evaluation of the possibility of using an ultrasound twinkling artifact in the detection of breast calcifications as a diagnostic criterion for breast cancer.Material and methods. A targeted ultrasound study using color Doppler mapping was performed to determine the presence of a twinkling artifact in 112 patients who had calcifications detected during X-ray mammography.Results. According to the ultrasound examination, the twinkling artifact was registered only in 10 of the 112 women examined. A pronounced twinkling artifact was registered in 3 patients, the calcifications were single, mainly lobular, with a size of more than 1 mm. In 5 cases, the flicker artifact was determined to be of moderate severity, and the distribution pattern was also dominated by single ones, more than 1 mm. Two patients with grouped calcinates had a weakly expressed twinkling artifact, their dimensions were also more than 1 mm.Conclusion. The data obtained indicate that the Doppler twinkling artifact in the mammary glands occurs only in macrocalcinates (larger than 1 mm) and, mainly, single ones. Modern ultrasound devices do not allow registering a twinkling artifact in calcinates smaller than 1 mm, which indicates that it is impossible to use Doppler color coding to detect microcalcinates as a predictor of breast cancer.