Attenuation of Ultrasound in Normal Liver and Diffuse Liver Disease in Vivo

Abstract

Preliminary results of in vivo attenuation measurements of the liver have been obtained in 39 normal patients and in 35 patients with diffuse liver disease. A modified real-time sector scanner incorporating an online attenuation measurement method was used. The value of attenuation in normal liver was estimated as 0.52 ± 0.03 dB/cm/MHz, measured at 3 MHz. Significantly higher attenuation values were obtained from patients with alcoholic and cardiac cirrhosis, and following hepatic artery infusion with chemotherapeutic agents. Lower values were obtained from patients with biliary cirrhosis, chronic active hepatitis, and diffuse infiltration by lymphoma or leukemia. Fatty infiltrated livers showed a wide range of values of 0.37 − 0.66 dB/cm/MHz. The results suggest that estimates of attenuation coefficients are useful in detecting the presence of diffuse liver disease.

Keywords

Attenuation diffuse liver disease liver ultrasound

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Green

Bree

R. L.

Goldstein

H. M.

Stanley

, Gray scale ultrasonographic evaluation of hepatic neoplasms: patterns and correlations, Radiology 124, 203–208 (1977).

Snow

J. H.

Goldstein

H. M.

Wallace

, Comparison of scintigraphy, sonography and computed tomography in the evaluation of hepatic neoplasms, Amer. J. Roentgenol. 132, 915–918 (1979).

Taylor

K. H. W.

Gorelick

F. S.

Rosenfield

A. T.

Riley

C. A.

, Ultrasonography of alcoholic liver disease with histological correlation, Radiology 141, 157–161 (1981).

Gosink

B. B.

Lemon

S. K.

Scheible

Leopold

G. R.

, Accuracy of ultrasonography in diagnosis of hepatocellular disease, Amer. J. Roentgenol. 133, 19–23 (1979).

Kurtz

A. B.

Rubin

C. S.

Cooper

H. S.

Nisenbaum

H. L.

Cole-Beuglet

Medoff

Goldberg

B. L.

, Ultrasound findings in hepatitis, Radiology 136, 717–723 (1980).

Sommer

F. G.

Joynt

L. F.

Carroll

B. A.

Macovski

, Ultrasonic characterization of abdominal tissues in a digital analysis of backscattered waveforms, Radiology 141, 811–817 (1981).

Kuc

, Clinical application of an ultrasound attenuation coefficient estimation technique for liver pathology characterization, IEEE Trans. Biomed. Eng. BME-27, 312–319 (1980).

Kuc

, Estimation of acoustic attenuation coefficient from reflected ultrasound, Proc. 34th ACEMB, p. 142 (1981) (Abstract only).

Ophir

Maklad

N. F.

Bigelow

R. H.

, Ultrasonic attenuation measurements of in vivo human muscle, Ultrasonic Imaging 4, 290–295 (1982).

10.

Ophir

Maklad

N. F.

, Precision Ultrasound Attenuation Measurement. US Patent #4,389,893, June 28, 1983.

11.

Goss

S. A.

Frizzell

L. A.

Dunn

, Ultrasonic absorption and attenuation in mammalian tissues, Ultrasound Med. Biol. 5, 181–186 (1979).

12.

Fink

Hottier

Cardoso

J. F.

, Ultrasonic signal processing for in vivo attenuation measurement: short time Fourier analysis, Ultrasonic Imaging 5, 117–135 (1983).

13.

Wells

P. N. T.

McCarthy

C. F.

Ross

F. G. M.

Read

A. E. A.

, Comparison of A-scan and compound B-scan ultrasonography in the diagnosis of liver disease, Br. J. Radiol. 42, 818–823 (1969).

14.

Mountford

R. A.

Wells

P. N. T.

, Ultrasonic liver scanning: the quantitative analysis of normal A-scan, Phys. Med. Biol. 17, 14–25 (1972a).

15.

Mountford

R. A.

Wells

P. N. T.

, Ultrasonic liver scanning: the A-scan in normal and cirrhosis, Phys. Med. Biol. 17, 261–269 (1972b).

16.

Goss

S. A.

Johnston

R. L.

Dunn

, Comprehensive compilation of empirical ultrasonic properties of mammalian tissues, J. Acoust. Soc. Amer. 64, 423–457 (1978).

17.

Goss

S. A.

Johnston

R. L.

Dunn

, Compilation of empirical ultrasonic properties of mammalian tissues II, J. Acoust. Soc. Amer. 68, 93–108 (1980).

18.

Jones

J. P.

Leeman

, Ultrasonic Tissue Characterization and Quantitative Ultrasound Scatter Imaging: Methods and Approaches, in Proc. International Workshop on Physics and Engineering in Medical Imaging.

19.

O'Donnell

Mimbs

J. W.

Sobel

B. E.

Miller

J. G.

, Ultrasonic Attenuation in Normal and Ischemic Myocardium, in Ultrasonic Tissue Characterization II, Linzer

, ed., NBS Spec. Publ. 525, pp. 63–71 (U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1979).

20.

Bamber

J. C.

Hill

C. R.

King

J. A.

, Acoustic properties of normal and cancerous human liver - II. dependence on tissue structure, Ultrasound Med. Biol. 7, 135–144 (1981).

21.

Narayana

P. A.

Ophir

, On the frequency dependence of attenuation in normal and fatty liver, IEEE Trans. Sonics Ultrasonics SU-306, 379–383 (1983).