A Body Navigation-Loaded Ultrasound Acquisition Technology: A Pilot Comparison with Conventional Ultrasound

In conventional ultrasonography, the ultrasound image is not labeled with information on the location or orientation of the transducer. There is also no information on the parts of the body under examination.

This study aimed to investigate the efficacy of body navigation-loaded ultrasonography, including the real-time transducer location and the inspection site, compared to conventional ultrasound.

After obtaining approval from the institutional review board, 29 healthy adult volunteers were prospectively enrolled in this study. One gastrointestinal radiologist performed an abdominal ultrasound, using an ultrasound navigation image convergence system, developed by the authors. Subsequently, an equivalent conventional ultrasound image set was prepared. Three radiologists independently evaluated the two ultrasound image sets for identifying the target organ (two points), transducer location (two points), and transducer orientation (one point). In a two-week interval, conventional ultrasound images were first analyzed, and then, body navigation-loaded images were examined. The score differences between the first and second evaluations were compared using Wilcoxon signed-rank test. The inter-rater agreement of the three reviewers was determined by measuring the Fleiss’ kappa value.

A total of 1,402 navigation-loaded ultrasound images were acquired in this study. The ultrasound operator carefully selected 203 images for analysis. The interpretation score of all three reviewers significantly increased for each examination in the second analysis using the body navigation-loaded ultrasound images (reviewer A, from 4.07 ± 1.56 to 4.79 ± 0.69; reviewer B, from 3.83 ± 1.59 to 4.49 ± 0.88; and reviewer C, from 3.43 ± 1.60 to 4.19 ± 1.01) (P < 0.0001). The inter-rater agreement of each examination also increased significantly in the second analysis using the body navigation-loaded ultrasound images (P < 0.0001).

According to the results of this pilot study, the body navigation-loaded ultrasound technology can assist with a simple and objective interpretation of ultrasound images from organs.