With the rapid development of microelectronics, handheld ultrasound devices emerged and have a widespread use in the field of medicine and healthcare. The handheld ultrasound is a modality of medical ultrasonic device that is portable (i.e., carried by hand), easy to operate and in some cases even combine the scanner with the host system. It normally has the characteristics of light weight, small size and low power consumption. With the wireless imaging transmission technique, remote and intelligent diagnosis is possible for the doctors using handheld ultrasound devices. As soon as the low-cost, highperformance handheld ultrasound device was launched, it attracted clinical attention and received a warm welcome from primary doctors and clinicians, thereby accelerating the development of ultrasonic clinical visualization. In this paper, we will illustrate the status and roles of handheld ultrasound for its clinical settings and applications in the past, current, and future.

With the development of bioengineering technologies, medical ultrasound systems have evolved and advanced over the years, including the transition of ultrasound machines from analog devices to digital systems and improvements in transducer assembly from piezoelectric ceramics to single crystals. In the past several years, the further miniaturization of ultrasound units has become possible with the advancement of computer chip manufacturing and production. Most recently, a new handheld ultrasound system has been developed by the startup company Butterfly Network, using an innovative CMUT/CMOS-based probe technique. This paper will review the history, technology and features of this new device, as well as discuss its future potential as a personal sonoscope.

Adenolymphoma is the second most common benign parotid tumor after pleomorphic adenoma. Although microwave ablation (MWA) has been proved to be effective for benign breast and thyroid nodules, there are few studies on ablation of adenolymphoma of parotid gland. An 82-year-old male with adenolymphoma of bilateral parotid gland treated with ultrasound-guided MWA. After 12 months of follow-up, the volume of bilateral parotid nodules was significantly reduced without recurrence and obvious complications. In conclusion, ultrasound-guided MWA is a safe and effective method for patients with parotid adenolymphoma who cannot tolerate surgery.

Objectives: To investigate the causes, differential diagnosis, and clinical significance of absent blood flow (ABF) in the testis detected by color Doppler ultrasound (CDU) in acute scrotum.
Methods: A total of 263 patients with ABF in the testis detected by CDU in our hospital were reviewed retrospectively. However, only 111 patients who underwent surgery were included in this study. The ultrasonographic features of the testis and paratesticular tissue were analyzed. The surgical or surgical-pathologic results were taken as the reference standard to determine the causes of ABF in the testis.
Results: The causes of ABF in the testis were testicular torsion (n = 98, torsion group) and non-testicular torsion related diseases (n = 13, non-torsion group, including 8 testicular rupture, 3 epididymitis-orchitis combination with testicular necrosis, and 2 tumors). Tunica albuginea of the testis, diffuse enlarged epididymis, whirlpool sign, and internal echo of the testis were the better parameters for diagnosing the causes of ABF in the testis detected by CDU. And the accuracies of these approaches were 93.7%, 91%, 83.8%, and 81.1%, respectively. Whirlpool sign had a 100% positive predictive value (PPV), and disrupted tunica albuginea of the testis and diffuse enlarged epididymis each had 100% specificity for predicting testicular torsion. When the ultrasonographic findings were combined with these methods to determine the causes, the accuracy was 96.4% (107/111).
Conclusion: ABF in the testis detected by CDU is not always indicative of testicular torsion in acute scrotum; Analyzing ultrasound findings of the testis and paratesticular tissue can help with differential diagnosis of the causes of ABF in the testis and guide clinical decision-making.

Objective: To evaluate the reliability of ultrasonographic (US) elastography of the sternocleidomastoid (SCM) muscle and to define normal strain ratio and shear wave velocity (SWV) values in healthy infants.
Methods: Two hundred healthy infants (mean age ± standard deviation, 1.64±1.78 month; 113 boys and 87 girls) were included in this prospective study. The thickness of bilateral SCM muscles was measured by B-mode ultrasonography, and the stiffness of SCM muscles was measured in both the longitudinal and transverse sections, symmetrical and extensional supine position, by using strain and shear wave elastography. The correlation between thickness and elastic values of the SCM muscle and the following possible influential factors were evaluated: sex, different sides of SCM muscle, different ultrasonic sections and different infant positions.
Results: Both sex and the side of SCM muscle did not show significant correlation with the thickness or stiffness of the SCM muscle (P > 0.05). The stiffness of SCM muscle in the longitudinal section was significantly greater than in the transverse section (P < 0.05). The measurements of the SCM muscle in the stretching position were significantly greater than those in the symmetrical position (P < 0.05).
Conclusion: The stiffness of SCM measured by US elastography is affected by relative positions of the infants. Therefore, the factor should be taken into account when measuring the stiffness of SCM by US elastography. US elastography can evaluate the stiffness of SCM, which is helpful for clinical diagnosis and treatment of children with torticollis.

The current medical ultrasound imaging device is mainly divided into console ultrasound device and portable ultrasound device. In this article, a new concept along with an innovative pathway to develop ultrasound imaging devices, namely distributed cloud-based ultrasound system (DCUS), was proposed. In DCUS, the ultrasound probes from multiple terminals are used to complete the transmission and reception as well as analog-to-digital conversion of ultrasonic signals, and upload the original radio frequency (RF) signals or in-phase and quadrature (IQ) signals to the cloud server through ultra-bandwidth high-speed communication technology, while the centralized cloud server platform finishes processing of ultrasonic signals and transmits and distributes ultrasound imaging to each related terminal in real time. Various artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms can also be deployed on the cloud-based platform to achieve AI-powered imaging optimization, protocol standardization, and assisted diagnosis. Thus, by utilizing new cloud-based platform and super-high transmission technology and combining the advantages of console ultrasound and portable ultrasound systems with flexibility, high imaging quality and intelligent features, DCUS could become whole new ultrasound system for medical imaging applications in foreseeable future.

Interventional ultrasound (IUS) is an important branch of modern minimally invasive medicine that has been widely applied in clinical practice due to its unique techniques and advantages. As a relatively emerging field, IUS has progressed towards standardization, precision, intelligence, and cutting-edge directions alone with more than 40 years of development, which is becoming increasingly important techniques in clinical medicine. This article will briefly review the development and advancement of IUS for diagnosis and treatment in China in the era of precision medicine from the aspects of artificial intelligence, virtual navigation, molecular imaging, and nanotechnology.

Objectives To measure the CSA of the HST musculature measured with ultrasonography in soccer players undergoing ACLR and compare limb differences with healthy controls.

Methods A case-control study was performed with patients after anterior cruciate ligament repair (ACLR) and healthy controls in which cross-sectional areas (CSA) obtained using a model TE7 ultrasound machine (MINDRAY ®, USA) in B mode (4.2 to 13 MHz) with a multifrequency linear array transducer (L12-4S). Three CSA images were taken of the semitendinosus muscle (ST) and the long head of the biceps femoris (BFlh), at a distance of 30% and 70% of the ischial tuberosity insertion. Mean differences between groups were analyzed using SPSS v.20 (IBM®, USA), and statistical analyses were performed using non-parametric techniques to determine differences between groups (Student's t-test) and Cohen's correlation coefficient to quantify effect size.

Results 14 ACLR operated 17 ± 5.4 months ago and 12 healthy controls (W = 6; M = 20M; 24.5 ± 3.92 years; BMI = 25.1 ± 2.32 kg/m²) were recruited. There were differences between groups in CSA-ST70 (Post-ACLR = 1.43 ± 1.029 cm² vs Control 2.65 ± 0.664 cm², T Student = -3.68, 95% CI [-Inf, -0.648], P < 0. 001, ES = -1.418), but not in CSA-ST30 (Post-ACLR = 8.42 ± 1.596 cm² vs Control 9.16 ± 0.945 cm², T Student = -1.535; 95% CI [-Inf, -0.0793], P = 0. 068, ES = -0.5607), CSA-BFlh30 (Post-ACLR = 8.79 ± 1.47 cm² vs Control 8.87 ± 2.312 cm², T Student = -0.123; 95% CI [-Inf, 1.1049], P = 0.452, ES = -0. 049) or CSA-BFlh70 (Post-ACLR = 6.91 ± 1.011 cm² vs Control 7.01 ± 1.453 cm², T Student = -0.214; 95% CI [-Inf, 0.6795], P = 0.416, ES = -0.0783).

Conclusion Ultrasound measurement of the CSA can be an image marker to identify muscle weakness or atrophy that predicts functional loss early.

Atherosclerosis (AS) is the main pathophysiological process behind CVD. Cardiovascular diseases caused by AS (such as stroke, coronary heart disease, etc.) are characterized by a high prevalence, high disability rate and high mortality, which greatly increase the burden on families and society. Thus, it is important to find AS as early as possible. When atherosclerosis occurs, the earliest sign of its structural and functional changes is arterial stiffness, and endothelial dysfunction is the key link. Arteriosclerosis is caused by the imbalance between collagen and elastin in the arteries. Elastin fibers gradually decrease, and stiffer collagen fibers increase, making the vessels less elastic. Endothelial dysfunction also affects the regulatory function of arterial vascular tension, and accelerates the remodeling of the vascular wall, to make blood vessels more rigid. Quantitative measurement of arterial stiffness and carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT) is an important tool for early detection of vascular lesions. At present, ultrasound technology including echo tracking (ET), wave intensity (WI), real-time shear wave elastography (SWE), ultrafast pulse wave velocity (ufPWV), shear wave dispersion (SWD), cardio-ankle vascular index (CAVI), arterial velocity pulse index and arterial pressure volume index (AVI and API) has the advantages of being noninvasive, real-time, economical and reproducible in the assessment of atherosclerosis, and is widely used in the early diagnosis of AS. Most importantly, the change in arterial hardness detected by traditional ultrasound technology precedes the change in intima-media thickness, suggesting that ultrasonic elasticity monitoring may be a more sensitive method of predicting AS and can find and prevent cardiovascular diseases earlier.

Ultrasound is a commonly used imaging modality for breast cancer diagnosis and prognosis but suffers from false positives, false negatives and interobserver variability. Deep learning (DL), a subset of artificial intelligence, has the potential to improve the efficiency and accuracy of breast ultrasound. This article provides a comprehensive overview of DL applications for breast cancer diagnosis and treatment in ultrasound, including methodological descriptions of various DL models, and clinical applications on noise reduction, lesion localization, risk assessment, diagnosis, response evaluation and outcome prediction. Furthermore, the review highlights the importance of interpretability and small sample size learning of DL-based systems in clinical practice; specific recommendations for further expanding the clinical impact of DL-based systems are also provided.

Objectives: To determine the efficacy of Doppler-based renal resistive index (RRI) in the prediction of acute kidney injury (AKI) in critically ill patients.
Methods: A systematic review and meta-analysis of cohort studies was conducted. Relevant studies were identified in PubMed, Embase and Cochrane Library from inception to November 1, 2020, and reference lists of identified primary studies. Prospective studies that examined the diagnostic accuracy of RRI in AKI were included.
Results: Among the 126 articles identified, 18 were included, with a total of 1656 patients. Bivariate analysis yielded pooled sensitivity and specificity of 0.81 (95% CI 0.74-0.86) and 0.75 (95% CI 0.65-0.83), respectively. The summary positive likelihood ratio was 3.2 (95% CI 2.2-4.6), and negative likelihood ratio was 0.26 (95% CI 0.19-0.36).
Conclusion: Elevated RRI may be an early predictor of AKI in critically ill patients. Further large-scale prospective studies are needed to confirm the predictive efficacy and determine the performance and optimal cutoff value of RRI among the included studies.

Objective: To assess the viscoelasticity of the carotid artery using shear wave dispersion Imaging and to determine the relevant factors.
Methods: Ninety volunteers were recruited and divided into elder group and young group. Shear wave dispersion (SWD) imaging was applied to measure carotid viscoelasticity. The other arterial parameters, including arterial pulse wave velocity (PWV), inner diameter (CD), intima-medium thickness (CIMT), peak systolic velocity (PSV), mean flow velocity (MFV), and velocity time integral (VTI) of the common carotid artery (CCA) were also recorded by using ultrasound measurement.
Results: Measurements showed the SWD were lower, while CD, CIMT and PWV were higher in the elder group than those of young group. However, SWD was negatively correlated with VTI, and PSV respectively (r = -0.492 and -0.533, all P < 0.05). SWD was also positively correlated with MFV (r = 0.354, P < 0.05). In elder group, SWD was negatively correlated with PSV and PWV, respectively (r = -0.372 and -0.422, all P < 0.05) while in young group, SWD positively correlated with CD, CIMT and MFV (r = 0.531, 0.462 and 0.479 respectively, and all P < 0.05).
Conclusion: SWD imaging shown relationship with ultrasound parameters of carotid artery and has a potential for assessment of arterial viscoelasticity.

Advances in modern clinical ultrasound include developments in ultrasound signal processing, imaging techniques and clinical applications. Improvements in ultrasound processing include contrast and high-fidelity ultrasound imaging to expand B-mode imaging and microvascular (or microluminal) discrimination. Similarly, volumetric sonography, automated or intelligent ultrasound, and fusion imaging developed from the innate limitations of planar ultrasound, including user-operator technical dependencies and complex anatomic spatial prerequisites. Additionally, ultrasound techniques and instrumentation have evolved towards expanding access amongst clinicians and patients. To that end, portability of ultrasound systems has become paramount. This has afforded growth into the point-of-care ultrasound and remote or tele-ultrasound arenas. In parallel, advanced applications of ultrasound imaging have arisen. These include high frequency superficial sonograms to diagnose dermatologic pathologies as well as various intra-cavitary or lesional interrogations by contrast-enhanced ultrasound. Properties such as realtime definition and ease-of-access have spurned procedural and interventional applications for vascular access. This narrative review provides an overview of these advances and potential future directions of ultrasound.

In 2009, Hitachi commercialized “Mappie^*1, the world’s first Capacitive Micro-machined Ultrasound Transducer (CMUT) using semiconductor based technology. It generated high quality diagnostic images of mammary glands, thanks to its broad-band characteristics^[1]. This year, the 4^th generation CMUT (4G CMUT) “SML44” has been brought to the market, achieved using advanced design and precise control of the fabrication process. When combined with new imaging technologies avail-able with the ARIETTA^*2 850, the SML44, in addition to excellent image quality, offers commonly used modalities and func- tions such as Tissue Harmonic Imaging (THI), Color Flow Mapping (CFM), Real-time Tissue Elastography^*3 (RTE), and Real-time Virtual Sonography^*4 (RVS). This report introduces the latest technology adopted in the 4G CMUT design.

The American College of Radiology has implemented the Liver Imaging Reporting and Data System (LI-RADS) to help detect, interpret, and guide the management of suspected lesions on surveillance imaging for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in patients with cirrhosis. The classification of indeterminate nodules with a grading algorithm can be used for multiple imaging modalities (US, CT, and MRI) and incorporates multiple imaging features to appropriately classify observations with different likelihood of being HCC. Contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) LI-RADS has been fully implemented since 2017. The aim of this pictorial article is to provide a comprehensive review of CEUS LI-RADS utilization, discuss its advantages, and highlight areas for potential improvement.

In recent years, ultrasound imaging has become an important means of medical diagnosis because of its safety and radiation-free advantages. With the continuous progress of deep learning, Artificial Intelligence (AI) models can process large amounts of ultrasound data quickly and accurately, providing decision support for clinicians in diagnosis. From the perspective of ultrasound image classification, detection and segmentation, this paper systemically introduces the latest progress of AI technology in ultrasound imaging, and summarizes the recent high-level related work. At the same time, we also discuss the development prospect and bottleneck of AI in ultrasound imaging processing, which provides the future research directions for researchers in related fields.

The POCUS Certification Academy, a subdivision of Inteleos, a non-profit certification organization, is striving to promote global standards and international certifications in the field of POCUS to enhance clinician proficiency and ensure patient safety. By offering relevant rigorous assessments, developing continuing education requirements, and promoting the use of point-of-care ultrasound worldwide, the POCUS Certification Academy is laying the foundation for the highest global standards in POCUS credentialing.

ChatGPT is attracting widespread attention from all walks of life with its excellent multi-round dialogue ability and strong user intent understanding ability, triggering a new wave of artificial intelligence. From the perspective of technical analysis, this article sorts out the various related technologies used in the GPT (Generative Pre-training Transformer) series models as well as large-scale multimodal models, which are more powerful and perform better in multiple downstream tasks. Meanwhile, we guide users to use LLM (Large Language Model) along with GPT more scientifically to maximize their potential. Finally, we analyze the application prospect of the GPT as well as the large-scale multimodal models in the medical field, and the problems are discussed from the perspectives of the risks and limitations of large-scale models applied into the medical field.

Objective: To investigate the value of lung ultrasound (LUS) in asymptomatic patients with confirmed COVID-19.
Methods: A retrospective analysis was performed on nine patients in a designated isolation hospital in Sanya from February 22nd, 2020 to February 23rd, 2020. All patients were confirmed with COVID-19 pneumonia by PCR test, but none had the typical symptoms of COVID-19. All patients first underwent LUS examination and then chest computed tomography (CT) scanning. The application value of LUS in asymptomatic confirmed patients with COVID-19 was evaluated, compared with chest CT which was regarded as the golden standard.
Results: Among nine asymptomatic patients with COVID-19, there were two cases (22.22%) with abnormal ultrasonic manifestations, of which one (11.11%) showed a fusion B3-line in zone 5 of the right lung, and the other showed localized pulmonary consolidation in zone 6 of the left lung. The remaining seven cases (77.78%) showed no abnormal changes in LUS, but only clear pleura sliding sign and A-line. Chest CT showed abnormal changes in three cases (33.33%). Two of them (22.22%) showed flocculent high-density shadow at the base of both lungs (especially in the right lung), while the other case showed ground-glass opacity with thickened interlobular septal in the left lower lobe, involving the pleura. There were no abnormalities on chest CT of the remaining six cases (66.67%). The two (22.22%) LUS-positive patients were in complete coincidence with CT-positive patients. This study showed that the coincidence rate of the two examination methods was 88.89%. Taking chest CT as golden standard, the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and Kappa value of lung ultrasound in the diagnosis of COVID-19 were 66.67%, 100%, 100%, 85.71%, and 0.727, respectively.
Conclusion: LUS can evaluate lung lesions in asymptomatic patients with COVID-19. Compared with chest CT, the diagnostic coincidence rate and diagnostic consistency of LUS are relatively higher. For this asymptomatic type of patient, ultrasound can be used as a diagnosis method, which can avoid the risk of radiation exposure in a short period of time. As a rapid and dynamic assessment method, LUS can cooperate with remote consultation to provide timely and accurate guidance for clinical diagnosis and treatment when necessary.

Objective: To investigate the best combined method of S-Detect, a computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) system, with breast ultrasound (US) according to radiologists’ experience.

Methods: From March 2019 to June 2019, 259 breast masses in 255 women were included in this study. Ultrasonographic images of the target masses were prospectively analyzed by radiologists and CAD. Three combined methods, including method 1 [selective downgrading combination for Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System (BI-RADS) 4a lesions], method 2 (selective upgrading combination for BI-RADS 3 lesions) and method 3 (selective upgrading or downgrading combination for BI-RADS 3 or 4a lesions), were applied to interpret the CAD results. The sensitivity, specificity, the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of experienced or inexperienced radiologists before and after adding CAD results were compared using the histopathological results as a reference standard.

Results: In identifying breast malignancy, the AUC for CAD was similar to that of experienced radiologists (P= 0.410), but higher than that of inexperienced radiologists (P= 0.003). When combining CAD with experienced radiologists based on method 1 and combining CAD results with inexperienced radiologists based on method 3, the AUCs were significantly improved (P= 0.024 and 0.003, respectively) compared to US alone, with significantly increased specificity (P< 0.001 for both) and no significantly decreased sensitivity (P> 0.05 for both).

Conclusion: The combination of CAD system and conventional ultrasound can improve ultrasound diagnostic performance in determining breast malignancy. The method 1 and method 3 combinations are respectively recommended for experienced and inexperienced radiologists when CAD is combined with conventional breast ultrasound.

The sentinel lymph node (SLN) concept hypothesizes that metastatic cancer cells will spread through the lymphatic system to the SLN being the first one in the lymphatic chain to receive the metastatic cells, indicating that if the SLN is free of cancer cells the rest of the lymphatic chain is also without metastatic disease. Diagnostic ultrasound imaging (US) has been used to evaluate lymph nodes (LN) to determine level of suspicion and to guide LN biopsies. However, conventional US cannot be used for lymphatic mapping, which requires administration of a tracer. This has been changed with the use of contrast-enhanced US (CEUS) to detect lymphatic channels and SLNs after subcutaneous injections of microbubble-based US contrast agents (UCAs). The aim of this review is to examine the clinical evidence on the role of subcutaneous injection of UCA, known as lymphosonography, to be used as preoperative identification of SLNs in patients with breast and other cancers.

Real-time intelligent segmentation of ultrasound video object is a demanding task in the field of medical image processing and serves as an essential and critical step in image-guided clinical procedures. However, obtaining reliable and accurate medical image annotations often necessitates expert guidance, making the acquisition of large-scale annotated datasets challenging and costly. This presents obstacles for traditional supervised learning methods. Consequently, semi-supervised learning (SSL) has emerged as a promising solution, capable of utilizing unlabeled data to enhance model performance and has been widely adopted in medical image segmentation tasks. However, striking a balance between segmentation accuracy and inference speed remains a challenge for real-time segmentation. This paper provides a comprehensive review of research progress in real-time intelligent semi-supervised ultrasound video object segmentation (SUVOS) and offers insights into future developments in this area.

Ultrasound has developed as an invaluable tool in diagnosis and proper management in the intensive care unit (ICU). Application of critical care ultrasonography is quite distinct from the routine comprehensive diagnostic ultrasound exam, because the urgent setting mandates a goal-directed approach. Performing accurate and efficient critical care ultrasound requires ultrasound providers to first understand the pathophysiology of the disease and related imaging findings, and then follow the protocols to perform a focused ultrasound exam. In the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, ultrasound plays an essential role in diagnosing and monitoring critically ill COVID-19 patients in the ICU. Our review focuses on the basics and clinical application of critical care ultrasound in diagnosing common lung disease, COVID-19 pulmonary lesions, pediatric COVID-19, and cardiovascular dysfunction as well as its role in ECMO and interventional ultrasonography.

Internal carotid artery dissection (ICAD) is the result of a tear at the intimal layer of the internal carotid artery, which is a common cause of stroke in young and middle age patients. We present multimodal vascular ultrasound findings (include color Doppler flow, power Doppler flow, advanced dynamic flow, superb microvascular and contrast enhanced ultrasound imaging) of a 30-year-old female with ICAD and thrombus in false lumen. To our best knowledge, this is the first report that several superior vascular ultrasound imaging techniques have been used to evaluate ICAD.

Objectives To assess the clinical efficacy and safety of ultrasound-guided stellate ganglion block in the treatment of allergic rhinitis.

Methods Sixty patients with allergic rhinitis were selected as study subjects and were treated with stellate ganglion blocking. We observed the appearance and time of the patient's Horner syndrome, and compared the patient's clinical symptom scores before and after one month treatment, and calculated the clinical efficacy and overall effective rate.

Results After ultrasound-guided stellate ganglion blocking treatment, 97% of patients occurred Horner syndrome within 2 minutes. The scores of sneezing, runny nose, nasal itching, and nasal congestion significantly reduced at one month after treatment compared with those before treatment, in which there was statistically significant difference (P<0.05). The clinical efficacy rate also reached 96.7% after procedures. No serious complications occurred in this study.

Conclusions Ultrasound-guided stellate ganglion block can significantly improve the clinical symptoms and the life quality for patients with allergic rhinitis, and it is worthy of extensive clinical application.

Undifferentiated embryonal sarcoma of the liver (UESL) is an aggressive mesenchymal tumor, which presents a low incidence in adults. The low morbidity and atypical clinical manifestations conduce to difficulty in preoperative diagnosis. Imaging manifestations of this tumor is important for its identification. Contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) was a promising tool to characterize hepatic lesions and proved to have high diagnostic accuracy. The present study reported the CEUS characteristics of UESL in two adult patients, which exhibited peripheral rim hyper-enhancement along with progressively centripetal enhancement and large areas of perfusion defection. Sonographers should be fully aware of this rare disease for better differential diagnosis.

Thyroid carcinoma is the most common malignant tumor of the endocrine system. Nearly 90% of thyroid carcinomas are papillary type, of which many are thyroid papillary microcarcinoma (PTMC) with a maximum diameter≤1 cm. Highresolution ultrasound imaging plays an important role in evaluating PTMC and guiding biopsy for pathology as well as appropriate treatment. This review paper discusses the ultrasonography features of PTMC and explores the clinical value of ultrasonography with gene testing in the diagnosis and management of PTMC.

Objective: The aims of the current study were to describe the serial CT characteristics of patients infected with COVID-19. In addition, in the light of the CT findings, we tried to determine whether virulence weakens during the transmission with quarantine management.
Methods: Demographics, comorbidity, clinical findings, CT scanning, and scores of the affected lung parenchyma were compared for 131 patients with abnormality on CT images classified as COVID-19 pneumonia and the patients were divided between an imported group (n = 83) and indigenous group (n = 48), according to infected location. Two reviewers scored chest CT examinations for segmental involvement, ground glass opacities, consolidation, and honeycombing opacities. The 55 patients with peak CT "severity score" were selected o make a comparative analysis.
Results: Patients’ demographics and comorbidities and clinical findings did not differ significantly between the two groups. The CT scores distribution trendline of the third CT scanning was lower than the former CT scanning. The peak CT scores trendline of the 55 selected COVID-19 patients in the indigenous group was lower than the imported group. The ROC analysis revealed an area under curve of 0.714 for the CT scanning with an optimal cutoff scores of 2.55 for prediction of contact history, a sensitivity of 76.3%, and a specificity of 52.9%.The peak CT scores of the imported cases were higher than of the indigenous cases and the lung consolidation predominance on CT findings was remarkable in the imported patients (P < 0.05).
Conclusions: CT scanning not only monitored the progression of patients with COVID-19 but also reflected their exposure status to some extent. We suggest that a follow-up CT scanning interval of more than 5 days might be cost effective. The pathogenicity of novel coronavirus may be weakened through transmission under adequate quarantine measures, since indigenous cases have much better progression than imported cases.

The anomalous origin of the left main coronary artery from the right sinus of the Valsalva (ALCA) is rare, and varies significantly in congenital heart disease. Patients are usually asymptomatic, and in most cases, coronary abnormalities are discovered by chance at autopsy after coronary angiography or sudden cardiac death. As a routine physical examination procedure, echocardiography is particularly important for the rapid and sensitive diagnosis of ALCA. We report a case of ALCA using echocardiography. “Seagull sign” is a direct ALCA sign manifesting on the short axis section of the artery with two vessels coming from the right coronary sinus. Based on this case, we propose this specific ultrasound sign as a way to improve the diagnostic rate.

Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) is a benign peripheral nerve sheath tumor, which can primarily cause neurocutaneous manifestations. We herein present a rare case of periportal neurofibromatosis with intrahepatic, retroperitoneal and pelvic involvement. The patient underwent abdominal ultrasound (US), magnetic resonance imaging, and a positron emission tomography-computed tomography. Despite these various imaging features, a diagnosis of lymphomas could not be entirely excluded. The patient therefore underwent US-guided biopsy, and a diagnosis of intrahepatic neurofibromatosis was made. Through retrospective analysis of this case along with literature review, we concluded that distributing along the Glisson’s sheath may be a characteristic in the diagnosis of NF that involves liver.

Solitary necrotic nodule of liver (SNNL) is a rare, benign lesion with an uncertain etiology. There are no typical diagnostic clinical or radiological features. The two patients we described underwent liver resection because it was not possible to exclude a malignancy on preoperative imaging. The histopathological findings suggest the SNNL may be parasitic in origin and find parasitic worm in the nodules.

Uterine artery pseudoaneurysm is a rare complication associated with obstetric or gynecological procedures. We described a case report of a primigravid, underwent cesarean section who evolved with massive, intermittent vaginal bleeding requiring multiple blood transfusions. The diagnosis of uterine artery pseudoaneurysm was suspected on transvaginal Doppler ultrasound and confirmed on computed tomography angiography. Due to the patient's stability, age and undefined offspring, superselective uterine artery embolization was chosen for treatment and the procedure successfully performed.

Contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) applications in cancer management have expanded over the past two decades. Through detection of vascularization and perfusion changes, CEUS provides a potentially reliable means of early prediction of response to different cancer therapies including systemic chemotherapy and locoregional therapies. Ultrasound-induced cavitation of contrast agents has a range of effects on the surrounding microenvironment. These effects can be manipulated to sensitize the tumors to radio- and chemotherapy, as well as achieve targeted delivery through drug-loaded contrast agents. Newer forms of drug carriers are being developed with improved drug-carrying capacity and tissue penetration. This review aims at providing a synopsis of the latest developments in CEUS’ use in oncologic therapy. While the majority of work described in this review is still in the pre-clinical phases, results have been encouraging and show potential translational benefit for cancer patients in the near future.

Objectives: To investigate the clinical value of ultrasound in the diagnosis and treatment of reninoma.
Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the ultrasound findings of 9 patients with reninoma confirmed by pathology after surgical resection in our hospital between September 2012 and August 2019. All patients underwent conventional preoperative ultrasonography. Three underwent contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) and 3 with complete endogenetic tumor underwent intraoperative ultrasonography.
Results: Of the 9 patients with conventional ultrasound, 7 had renal space-occupying lesions and 2 had missed diagnosis. A hypoechoic or hyperechoic solid mass with regular morphology, clear boundary, capsule, weak echo halo around the mass, incomplete thin strip color blood flow signal around the mass were shown in 7 cases. Color Doppler displayed color flow signal of the incomplete thin strip around the mass and arterial blood supply with an internal thin branch. In 3 patients (including 2 with missing diagnosis by conventional ultrasound) who underwent preoperative contrast-enhanced ultrasound, the reninoma manifested as low enhancement, and the perfusion pattern showed as slow wash-in and slow wash-out compared with normal renal cortex. In 3 patients (including 2 cases of missed diagnosis by conventional ultrasound) with completely endogenic reninoma, intraoperative ultrasound clearly showed the tumor characteristics, and all successfully underwent laparoscopic ultrasound-guided partial nephrectomy.
Conclusions: Preoperative conventional ultrasound combined with CEUS, and clinical features, are helpful for the qualitative diagnosis of reninoma. Laparoscopic partial resection is the first-choice treatment for reninoma. Intraoperative ultrasound can provide real-time imaging, accurately evaluate the tumor status, and provide important information for surgeons.

Schwannoma (syn. neurilemoma, neuroschwannoma) is a benign tumor derived from nerve sheath cells (Schwann cells), which is the most common type of peripheral neurogenic tumors. In this case, a patient with papillary thyroid carcinoma on the left side was found to have a predominantly cystic nodule in the ipsilateral neck level 4 by ultrasonography (US), which mistook for ipsilateral cervical lymph node metastasis and was later found to be a vagal nerve sheath tumor by surgery. The article reviews the pathology, imaging findings and differential diagnosis of schwannomas. A meticulous evaluation and comprehensive differential diagnosis are pivotal to reach correct diagnosis.

Objective: This study evaluated the performance of automated machine-learning to diagnose non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) by ultrasound and compared these findings to radiologist performance.
Methods: 96 patients with histologic (33) or proton density fat fraction MRI (63) diagnosis of NAFLD and 100 patients without evidence of NAFLD were retrospectively identified. The “Fatty Liver” label included 96 patients with 405 images and the “Not Fatty Liver” label included 100 patients with 500 images. These 905 images made up a “Comprehensive Image” group. A “Radiology Selected Image” group was then created by selecting only images considered diagnostic by a blinded radiologist, resulting in 649 images. Cloud AutoML Visionbeta (Google LLC, Mountain View, CA) was used for machine learning. The models were evaluated against three blinded radiologists.
Results: The “Comprehensive Image” group model demonstrated a sensitivity of 88.6% (73.3-96.8%) and a specificity of 95.3% (84.2-99.4%). Radiologist performance on this image group included a sensitivity of 81.0% (74.3-87.6%) and specificity of 86.0% (72.6-99.5%). The model’s overall accuracy was 92.3% (84.0-97.1%), compared with mean individual performance (83.8%, 78.4-89.1%). The “Radiology Selected Image” group model demonstrated a sensitivity of 88.6% (73.3 - 96.8%) and specificity of 87.9% (71.8-96.6%). Mean radiologist sensitivity was 92.4% (86.9-97.9%) and specificity was 91.9% (83.4-100%). The model’s overall accuracy was 88.2% (78.1-94.8%) which was comparable to the individual radiologist performance (92.2%, 90.1-94.2%) and consensus performance (95.6%, 87.6-99.1%).
Conclusions: An automated machine-learning algorithm may accurately detect NAFLD on ultrasound.