Irreversible electroporation (IRE) is an innovative non-thermal ablation technique increasingly utilized in cancer treatment due to its unique operational principles and clinical advantages. As a novel interventional ultrasound technology, IRE has undergone extensive research, development, and practical application over the years. IRE ablation, particularly in conjunction with immunotherapy, has emerged as a significant modality in cancer treatment and related fields. This article aims to present the advancements in irreversible electroporation ablation for cancer through an examination of both basic research and clinical applications.

Cancer, one of the leading causes of global mortality, arises from dysregulated cellular processes that create an immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (TME), promoting immune evasion and therapeutic resistance. While immunotherapy activates the immune system to combat tumors and provide durable benefits, its efficacy is often constrained by the hostile TME. Focused ultrasound (FUS) has emerged as a non-invasive, and precise therapeutic modality capable of mechanically or thermally ablating solid tumors. This review discusses the dual mechanisms of FUS—thermal ablation (T-HIFU) and mechanical disruption (M-HIFU, e.g., histotripsy)—and their role in modulating the TME. Specifically, it examines how FUS-induced immune activation can overcome immunosuppressive barriers, promote T-cell infiltration, and synergize with immunotherapy to improve outcomes in solid tumors, while also highlighting current challenges and future directions.

Objective Plantar fascia (PF) is a thick connective tissue on the plantar surface of the foot that plays a crucial role in maintaining the longitudinal arch. Plantar fasciitis, characterized by inflammation of the medial tuberosity of the calcaneus, is one of the most common causes of heel pain. Imaging is essential for accurate diagnosis, with ultrasonography widely applied to evaluate PF thickness, monitor therapeutic outcomes, and guide interventions. However, its application is limited by operator dependency. This study aimed to investigate the inter- and intra-rater reliability of musculoskeletal ultrasound in measuring PF thickness in patients with plantar fasciitis.
Methods In this cross-sectional analytical study, 40 participants were enrolled, including 26 females and 14 males. The reliability of PF measurements on different sides was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha and intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC).
Results A total of 40 participants (age range: 20-60 years) were included in the study. PF thickness in patients with plantar fasciitis measured by Observer 1 ranged from 3.8-6.9 mm (left) and 3.2-6.0 mm (right), whereas measurements by Observer 2 ranged from 2.9-7.1 mm (left) and 3.2-6.0 mm (right). Intra-rater reliability showed ICCs ranging from 0.618-0.857 for Observer 1 and 0.76-0.92 for Observer 2, indicating moderate (> 0.60) to excellent reliability.
Conclusion PF is a deep structure, and its visualization may be influenced by operator technique. Ultrasound measurement of tendon thickness shows good reliability in patients with established plantar fasciitis.

Objective It is always a clinical challenge to identify neonatal pulmonary hypertension (NPH). Although the diagnostic gold standard of pulmonary hypertension (PH) is the true measurement of resting pulmonary arterial pressure (PAP) through cardiac catheterization, it is inappropriate for delicate newborns. Hence, echocardiography examination has become the most common inspection tool for NPH despite its limitations.
Methods After outlining the conventional echocardiographic parameters for detecting NPH and their drawbacks in newborns, this review mainly discussed the roles of two-dimensional speckle tracking echocardiography, including RV global longitudinal strain and segmental longitudinal strain, in the evaluation of NPH, hoping to provide more information for detecting NPH.
Results When combined with conventional echocardiographic parameters, RV longitudinal strain would be a great help for the evaluation of NPH. Furthermore, based on the preliminary research, our finding revealed that the magnitude of the apical segmental strain of RVFW was significantly lower, and the basal-to-apical strain ratio (Ratio bas/api) of RVFW was remarkably higher in infants with PH than those without PH.
Conclusion Based on the particularity of newborns, neonatal echocardiography is the preferred inspection method for NPH. It provides hemodynamic, morphological and functional information for evaluating NPH. RV longitudinal strain is sensitive to subtle changes of RV function and closely related to PH. It could be considered not only as the key factor affecting the prognosis of NPH but also as a potential index to detect and identify NPH.

Objectives Conventional ultrasound (US) elastography lacks specificity in distinguishing benign from malignant breast lesions. This study employed US to assess breast tissue viscosity and elasticity. The primary objective was to evaluate the diagnostic performance of US-derived viscoelasticity parameters. Secondary objectives included investigating the consistency of parameters in the mechanical properties of breast tissue.
Materials and methods Two doctors independently measured the viscosity and elasticity of specific positions in the breasts of 20 health females for consistency assessment. Then the doctors selected region of interest (ROI) to measure viscoelasticity. ROI-1, ROI-2, and ROI-3 represent the tumor, peritumoral, and peripheral areas, respectively. The viscosity modulus and elasticity modulus of 3 ROIs were analyzed. The viscosity and elasticity parameters with the highest area under the curve (AUC) were selected as the optimal ones. Finally, elasticity and viscosity parameters were combined to assess their diagnostic performance in differentiating breast lesions.
Results US viscoelasticity parameters can be measured with high consistency. Among conventional US elasticity parameters, 1-Emax demonstrated the highest AUC (0.746) for differentiating benign and malignant breast lesions. In US viscoelasticity parameters, 2-Emax achieved the highest AUC of 0.801, while 2-Vmax showed the highest AUC of 0.835. The highest specificity (0.903) was observed when both 2-Emax and 2-Vmax exceeded their respective cutoff values (P < 0.05 for all).
Conclusion Quantitative ultrasound viscoelasticity parameters play a crucial role in breast cancer diagnosis, with tumor boundary parameters being particularly significant for cancer screening and prevention strategies.

Objective To improve infant outcomes and guide treatment decisions, early and accurate diagnosis of congenital abnormalities during pregnancy is crucial. Despite its excellent accuracy, chorionic villus sampling (CVS) has procedural dangers; sonography offers a non-invasive, safer substitute. With an emphasis on clinical value, safety, and diagnostic accuracy, this evaluation assesses how well sonography performs in identifying congenital diseases prior to 12 weeks of gestation when compared to CVS.
Methods A comprehensive review of the literature was conducted using databases such as Web of Science, PubMed, and Scopus. Studies published between 2015 and 2024 that examined the diagnostic sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of sonography and CVS for congenital illness identification were included.
Results With a sensitivity of 85-90%, sonography shows excellent accuracy in identifying anatomical abnormalities such organ malformations and nuchal translucency. Although CVS has a 0.5-1% chance of miscarriage, it is still the gold standard for identifying chromosomal abnormalities with an accuracy of around 99%. Combining the two modalities reduces hazards while improving diagnostic accuracy.
Conclusion For low-risk populations in particular, sonography provides a dependable, non-invasive screening method for congenital abnormalities prior to 12 weeks. For high-risk instances that need genetic investigation, CVS is advised. Integration of both approaches could optimize prenatal diagnostic protocols.

Objective Aortic stenosis (AS), a prevalent valvular disease, demands accurate diagnosis. Current methods, notably Doppler echocardiography, face limitations like dynamic image challenges and reliance on cardiologist experience. To assess aortic stenosis, measuring the LVOT diameter is critical, as a 1 mm difference can result in a 10% variation in stroke volume. Accurate Doppler beam alignment and LVOT VTI measurement are also essential to avoid errors. Our study, utilizing the TMED 2 dataset, introduces a novel artificial intelligence program for precise aortic stenosis diagnosis. By leveraging AI, we aim to overcome existing constraints and significantly enhance diagnostic accuracy.
Methods a novel method that involves using convolutional neural networks (CNNs), were used to grade AS based on various views of transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) images from the TMED 2 dataset. This innovative method aimed to take advantage of CNN’s abilities to recognize detailed patterns in echocardiographic data, making AS diagnosis more accurate. We evaluated the performance of our CNN models using confusion metrics and the area under the receiver operator curve (AUROC).
Results Our CNN networks were trained on a dataset comprising view_and_diagnosis_labeled_set, which included 599 studies from 577 unique patients (some with multiple studies on distinct days). For classification, we chose three classes: no aortic stenosis, aortic stenosis, and mild aortic stenosis. The detection of aortic stenosis achieved an accuracy of 85.74%. External validation using three views (PLAX, PSAX, and A4C) of outpatient transthoracic echocardiograms demonstrated effective screening for AS, yielding respective AUROCs of 0.81, 0.88, and 0.48.
Conclusion Our novel CNN-based approach achieved an 85,74% accuracy in AS detection using diverse views from the TMED 2 dataset. External validation on outpatient echocardiograms demonstrated robust screening capabilities, with AUROCs of 0.81, 0.88, and 0.48 for PLAX, PSAX, and A4C views, respectively. These promising results suggest the potential of AI in improving AS diagnosis for clinical applications. Moving forward, our future endeavors will focus on addressing data imbalances and detecting the view of images, in addition to assessing the severity of aortic stenosis, to further refine and optimize our diagnostic approach.

Objective To compare fetal cardiac morphology and function between small-for-gestational-age (SGA) and appropriate-for-gestational-age (AGA) fetuses using two-dimensional speckle-tracking echocardiography (2D-STE), and to evaluate global longitudinal strain (GLS), global sphericity index (GSI), and fractional area change (FAC) in both ventricles with FetalHQ software.
Methods This cross-sectional observational study included 101 pregnant women, comprising 36 with SGA and 65 with AGA fetuses. Five- to fifteen-second four-chamber view (4CV) cine loops of the fetal heart were acquired and analysed using fetal heart quantification and speckle tracking (FetalHQ) software. GLS, GSI, and FAC of both left ventricle (LV) and right ventricle (RV) were measured.
Results SGA fetuses demonstrated significantly lower GSI values, consistent with a more globular cardiac shape. LV-FAC and RV-FAC were significantly lower in SGA compared with AGA fetuses, reflecting impaired systolic function. Both LV-GLS and RV-GLS values were significantly higher (less negative) in the SGA group, indicating early biventricular systolic dysfunction. These findings align with previously reported adaptive responses of the fetal myocardium to chronic hypoxia.
Conclusion The study highlights distinct alterations in fetal cardiac morphology and function between SGA and AGA groups. FetalHQ-based deformation analysis may potentially detect subclinical biventricular dysfunction in SGA fetuses before Doppler abnormalities become apparent, offering potential for earlier clinical intervention and closer monitoring.

Objective Uterine and ovarian development is influenced by both age and hormonal milieu. Sonographic assessment of normal pubertal and pre-puberty girls provides critical insights into the physiological trajectory of female gonadal maturation and its potential pathological deviations.
Methods This was a cross-sectional study conducted at Gilani Ultrasound Center, Lahore, Pakistan. The duration of the study was 9 months. Uterus length, width, height, volume, right/left ovary volume and Fundo/Cervical ratio were measured.
Results A total of 384 subjects were included in our study, categorizing them into pre-puberty (age 2-6 years), early puberty (age 7-11 years), and late puberty (age 12-18 years) groups. In the pre-puberty group (n = 111, mean age 4.29 ± 1.20 years), uterine measurements revealed a mean length of 2.95 cm, height of 0.97 cm, width of 1.41 cm, and volume of 4.82 cm³. The mean volumes of the right and left ovaries were 1.24 cm³ and 1.10 cm³, respectively, with a mean F/C ratio of 1.33. For the early puberty group (n = 99, mean age 9.15 ± 1.45 years), uterine measurements included a mean length of 4.03 cm, height of 1.22 cm, width of 1.80 cm, and volume of 12.37 cm³. In the late puberty group (n = 31, mean age 12.63 ± 1.21 years), uterine measurements showed a mean length of 5.29 cm, height of 1.82 cm, width of 2.65 cm, and volume of 31.11 cm³. The mean volumes of the right and left ovaries were 4.70 cm³ and 5.26 cm³, respectively, with a mean F/C ratio of 1.26.
Conclusion Uterine and ovarian dimensions, including volumes, correlate directly with age and pubertal status, except for the (Fundus/Cervical) ratio, which shows individual variability. This normative data could serve as a basis for the evaluation of Uterine and ovarian dimensions and volume in the local population.

Diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) is one of the most common chronic complications of diabetes, which can lead to neuropathic pain, foot ulcers, and even disability, and greatly reduces survival. Therefore, early diagnosis and prevention of DPN is of great importance to reduce symptoms and disability rate. Ultrasound elastography is a noninvasive method to evaluate changes in nerve tissue composition by obtaining the elastic modulus of tissue and visually displaying the stiffness in the form of images. This paper summarizes the application progress of ultrasound elastography in the evaluation of peripheral neuropathy in recent years, in order to provide reference for the future clinical application of large samples.

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.

Objective To evaluate the feasibility and capability of UT in detecting musculoskeletal system lesions in the limbs and to explore its image quality.

Materials and Methods The Institutional Review Board has approved this prospective single-center study. This study included participants with various musculoskeletal and neurologic disorders in the limbs who provided written consent from October 2022 to April 2023. In addition to other radiological examinations (X-rays, CT, or MRI) and conventional handheld ultrasound scans requested by clinicians based on the conditions, each participant also underwent UT scanning using our developed limb ultrasound imaging system during the same period. Four radiologists and ultrasound physicians with more than five years of experience in musculoskeletal diagnostics analyzed the two-dimensional and three-dimensional images of the examination area.

Results Overall, 50 participants were evaluated (mean age, 36 years ± 18 [SD]; 26 males). The conditions included musculoskeletal tumors (n = 10), postoperative follow-up of musculoskeletal tumors (n = 20), peripheral nerve disorders in the limbs (n = 10) and postoperative pain in orthopedic surgery (n = 10). In all UT images, the region of interest was completely displayed, and internal structures such as muscles and nerves were clearly visible. Compared to conventional ultrasound images, the reconstructed three-dimensional images intuitively displayed the relationship between the lesions and surrounding tissues. Furthermore, UT did not exhibit metal artifacts when observing soft tissues around metallic implants, providing more comprehensive soft tissue information and more intuitive stereoscopic images.

Conclusion Clinical results of the UT system have demonstrated its feasibility as an automated and standardized imaging technique for musculoskeletal imaging, providing a new imaging modality for the diagnosis of musculoskeletal diseases in the human body.

Objective To investigate the effectiveness of SMI in evaluating hepatic IRI and detecting its therapy response.

Methods Thirty rats were randomly divided into sham (n = 12), IRI (n = 12), and andrographolide pretreatment (n = 6) groups. SMI, pathological, and biochemical examinations were conducted for the sham and IRI groups at 4 (n = 6) and 24 h (n = 6) after reperfusion, respectively. Two ultrasonologists measured the vascular index (VI). The interobserver agreement was evaluated using the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). The rat liver parameters, including Suzuki's score, alanine aminotransferase (ALT), and aspartate aminotransferase (AST), were obtained at different time steps in each group. For the andrographolide pretreatment group, data were obtained at 24 h after reperfusion to further verify the advantage of VI. Parameters were analyzed for correlations and compared between each group at 4 and 24 h.

Results The ICC between two ultrasonologists who measured the VI was 0.912 (95%CI: 0.889-0.940). Suzuki's score and VI were negatively correlated (r = -0.504, P = 0.012). Compared with the sham group, the IRI group showed a significant decrease in the VI at 4 and 24 h after reperfusion [(24.78 ± 3.23) versus (20.22 ± 2.55); (22.67 ± 1.36) versus (19.27 ± 2.23), P < 0.05)]. The VI in the andrographolide pretreatment group was higher than that in the IRI group [(21.90 ± 1.47) versus (19.27 ± 2.23), P <0.05].

Conclusions The VI on SMI can be used as a noninvasive and sensitive index to evaluate hepatic IRI and detect its therapeutic response.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The incidence of giant cystic meconium peritonitis (GCMP) in pregnancies following artificial reproductive techniques is rare. We report the first case of GCMP following in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer in China. A 32-year-old woman with a history of bilateral salpingectomy due to ectopic pregnancy attended our in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer program. Meconium peritonitis, polyhydramnios, bowel dilatation, and intra-abdominal calcification were detected by ultrasound at 33 weeks of gestation. Cesarean section due to scarred uterus was performed at 35⁺¹ weeks of gestation. A normal female infant with a distended abdomen was delivered. Emergency laparotomy was performed on the female infant because of the presence of a giant abdominal mass. A 0.2-cm perforation was found in the ileum. Enterostomy could not be performed due to the heavy adhesion. Prenatal diagnosis of meconium peritonitis is possible through careful ultrasonographic examination, and prognosis can be improved through early surgical intervention and intensive postoperative support.

With the development of network technology and intelligent robot technology, Robot-assisted teleultrasound has played an important role in clinical fields. The application of real-time remote ultrasound technology has made the ultrasonic diagnosis break through the limitation of time and space distance, and solved the problem of shortage of medical resources to a certain extent. This article introduces the development and application basis of robot-assisted teleultrasound, summarizes the clinical application status, and discusses the advantages and limitations of its current application. In addition, we discuss the value in application scenario, interventional therapy and intracavitary ultrasound in the future.

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.

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.

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.

The ovaries are normally situated on the lateral aspect of the uterus in a shallow depression called an ovarian fossa. Maldescended ovaries occur when the ovary has not been localized in an intrapelvic location. Maldescended ovaries can be found with a normal uterus and more often with Mullerian duct abnormalities. There is no established association between ovarian tumors and maldescended ovaries. The present case report is a very rare case of mature cystic teratoma of a maldescended right ovary located within the subhepatic region. To bring this into focus in cases with an abnormal dermoid cyst site in a female. The patient should be carefully evaluated for ovarian sites and the possibility of maldescended ovaries should be taken into account. The maldescended ovaries with complicated cysts or with tumor should be included in the differential diagnosis of causes of abdominal pain in females.

Conventional two-dimensional ultrasonography revealed a hypoechoic mass in the liver of a middle-aged male patient. Enhanced ultrasound suggested intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma. Enhanced MRI confirmed it as liver cancer. The patient underwent partial liver resection and was pathologically diagnosed as sarcomatoid intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma. Pulmonary infection occurred one month after surgery. Chest CT suggested left rib metastasis and then radiotherapy was performed. The patient was treated with Lenvatinib after discharge. No recurrence was observed within 36 months. He survived much longer than other patients reported in the literature. The survival of patients with intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma can be prolonged through early detection and treatments of surgery, radiotherapy and targeted therapy.

Sarcoidosis is a granulomatous disease of unknown etiology that can involve various organs and tissues. The clinical manifestations vary greatly, so it is difficult to make a clear diagnosis of sarcoidosis with just the clinical manifestation and imaging findings. The diagnosis and treatment of a patient with systemic sarcoidosis was reported: a 51-year-old woman presented with a dry cough. Computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and conventional ultrasonography (US) suggested miliary nodules and inflammatory changes in the lungs, there was mediastinal, retroperitoneal and hilar lymph node enlargement and uneven liver echo, respectively. Positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET-CT) further suggested that the lesions were distributed throughout the body, including the lymph nodes and muscles of the extremities; thus, systemic lymphoma was considered. Finally, ultrasound-guided biopsy of different sites yielded the same histopathological findings: sarcoidosis. The sarcoidosis in this case is characterized by a large number of involved sites with a wide range, and a variety of imaging data were complete but failed to suggest a diagnosis. Finally, a clear histopathological result was obtained under the guidance of ultrasound. This article reviewed the relevant literature and concluded that ultrasound-guided puncture to obtain histopathological results is a simple and effective method for the diagnosis of sarcoidosis.

Retroperitoneal ectopic pregnancy (REP) is extremely rare and can be easily missed due to its special location. As most REP are close to the major abdominal blood vessels, misdiagnosis can lead to serious consequences, even threatening the patient's life. This report presents a 26-year-old naturally conceived patient who was diagnosed with REP through transvaginal ultrasound and underwent early surgery with good recovery.

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.

The transverse vaginal septum is a rare abnormality of the female genital tract. Conventional combined with contrast-enhanced ultrasound can not only accurately predict the position of the transverse vaginal septum, but also accurately judge the thickness of the septum and whether there are holes in the septum. We reported a case of congenital incomplete transverse vaginal septum diagnosed by conventional and contrast-enhanced ultrasound.

We report a rare case of pseudomyxoma peritonei (PMP) originating from right ovarian borderline mucinous tumor in a 79-year-old Chinese female. The patient came to our hospital with complaints of abdominal distention. Ultrasonography (US) showed the jelly-like ascites accumulated in the middle abdomen and pelvic cavity within an internal stripe-like echo. Intraoperative exploration revealed that the flavescent and mucinous material, mucinous ascites was present with right ovarian borderline mucinous tumor. Unilateral oophorectomy was performed followed by evacuation of the mucinous ascites. Histological examination confirmed the clinical diagnosis of PMP.

Early detection of vascular disease is fundamental to the prevention and treatment of systemic vascular lesions. The timely identification of vascular damage can be achieved by comprehensively assessing the structural anomaly and/or functional degeneration of the vasculature. The assessment may to some extent indicate the long-term detrimental effects of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors on vascular health. A key aspect in the evaluation of vascular function is the measurement of arterial stiffness. In 2012, the arterial velocity-pulse index (AVI) and arterial pressure-volume index (API) were introduced, which are noninvasively measured with a brachial cuff, and can reflect the status of arterial stiffness in both the aorta and the brachial artery. A large number of relevant studies have demonstrated the strong associations between AVI/API and various CVD risk factors, underlining the substantial relevance of the indices in CVD risk assessment. In this review, we provide a systematic review of the progresses made in brachial cuff-based measurements of arterial stiffness. In addition, we summarize the results of the recent studies focused on exploring the associations of AVI/API with relevant risk factors as well as their roles in CVD assessment.

Objective To predict sonographic features of malignancy in thyroid nodules by using convolutional neural networks (CNNs) ResNet50 model.

Methods A cohort of 461 patients having sonographic thyroid nodules with histology diagnosis were randomly split into training set (70%), validation set (15%) and testing set (15%). Labeled sonographic patterns of thyroid nodules were used to train CNNs ResNet50 in training set, where algorithm pipelines were used to explicitly delineate structures of interest using segmentation algorithms to measure predefined characteristics of these structures as to be predictive and to use these features to train models that predict the malignancy in thyroid nodules. The prognostic accuracy of ResNet50 model was evaluated on validation set and compared with the individual sonographic specialists in testing set. Accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, and efficiency of ResNet50 model was measured using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve.

Results Measurements showed the evaluation indexes of ResNet50 model were as follows: accuracy: 94.39%, sensitivity: 92.45%, specificity: 96.30%, efficiency: 96.08%, F1 value: 94.23%, and AUC: 93.40%. The prognostic accuracy and other indexes of ResNet50 model was not subordinate compared to sonographic specialists (P < 0.05).

Conclusion These results highlight the emerging role of deep learning techniques including CNNs in precision medicine and suggest an expanding utility for computational analysis of sonographic images in the future practice. This study showed a computational approach can be used for learning sonographic features of thyroid nodules using ResNet50 model to combine the power of adaptive machine learning and algorithms with traditional sonographic assessment.

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.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is one of the ten leading causes of death worldwide. Atherosclerotic disease, which can lead to myocardial infarction and stroke, is the main cause of CVD. The two main ultrasound image phenotypes used to monitor atherosclerotic load are carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) and plaque area (PA). Early segmentation and measurement methods were based on manual or threshold segmentation, snake models, etc. Usually, these methods are semi-automatic and have poor repeatability and accuracy. Segmentation of the carotid intima-media complex (IMC) and plaque in ultrasound based on artificial intelligence can achieve good accuracy. Compared with two-dimensional ultrasound, three-dimensional/four-dimensional ultrasound can provide spatial dynamic vascular information, which is helpful for doctors to evaluate. This study reviews the progress of artificial intelligence (AI) segmentation methods based on machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) used in the segmentation of the IMC and plaque as well as the 3D / 4D reconstruction of carotid ultrasound.

This paper reports a case of closed reduction internal fixation of pelvic fracture and minimally invasive hemostasis procedure and hematoma catheterization and drainage for the active pelvic bleeding site and giant hematoma, guided by a robot-assisted teleultrasound. In this case, the robot-assisted teleultrasound-guided minimally invasive interventional hemostasis and catheterization utilized a partial master-slave approach. It was preliminarily confirmed that robot-assisted teleultrasound-guided minimally invasive hemostasis and puncture catheterization for hematoma were accurate and effective. The robot-assisted teleultrasound overcomes the reliance on physician experience in ultrasound-guided interventional diagnostics and treatment, and promoting the use of minimally invasive "visualized" technology across any distance.

Objective Inpainting is a technique for fixing or removing undesired areas of an image.

Methods In present scenario, image plays a vital role in every aspect such as business images, satellite images, and medical images and so on.

Results and Conclusion This paper presents a comprehensive review of past traditional image inpainting methods and the present state-of-the-art deep learning methods and also detailed the strengths and weaknesses of each to provide new insights in the field.

This paper begins with the medical digital ultrasonic imaging workstations' development history and stages of PACS (Picture Archiving and Communication Systems). We analyze the actual application scenarios and pain points in medical digital ultrasonic imaging and introduce the support of medical digital ultrasonic imaging workstations for the entire business process. At the same time, we explain the role of AI functions in promoting business improvements throughout the process, using Shenzhen Maternal and Child Health Hospital as an application case study. This paper also discusses the difficulties faced by the development of AI in medical digital ultrasonic imaging and provides some solutions and suggestions. We offer a perspective on the future development of artificial intelligence in medical digital ultrasonic imaging. We explore potential application scenarios in areas such as empowering the ultrasound process with intelligent management, ultrasound consultation, cloud-based electronic films, and the Internet of Things (IoT) services.

Objective This cross-sectional study was designed considering disagreements on the normal range of Median Nerve Cross-Sectional Area (MNCSA) and its association with age.

Methods In this cross-sectional descriptive study, the upper limbs of 98 healthy subjects (46 men and 52 women) were assessed bilaterally by sonography, and MNCSA was measured at the distal wrist crease.

Results Mean MNCSA values for subjects older and younger than 40 were 11.25 mm² and 10.21 mm², respectively. The results showed that the MNCSA significantly increased after 40 years of age.

Conclusion According to the present study's findings, advances in age can increase the MNCSA and affect the diagnostic accuracy of MNCSA measurement in CTS diagnosis.