The Usefulness of Twinkling Artifact at Color Doppler Ultrasonogram in The Detection of Renal Calculus

Abstract

Introduction: The twinkling color Doppler ultrasonography artifact may assist stone imaging identification by highlighting kidney stones with quickly changing color. And its uneven appearance has limited practical value. The twinkling artifact is also called the color comet-tail artifact.The study aimed to evaluate the usefulness of the color doppler ultrasonogram in the detection of renal calculus. Methods: This prospective clinical study was conducted at the Department of Radiology and Imaging in BIRDEM General Hospital, Dhaka. The study period was one year, starting from 1st July 2013 to 30th June 2014. Purposive sampling was used to choose 59 clinically questionable participants in total. SPSS software was used to handle and analyze the gathered data. The findings were presented in the form of tables, figures, graphs, etc. Result: The mean age was 43.50 years with a standard deviation of the mean (SD) ± 13.42 years, and their age ranged from 31 to 64 years. The majority of the study subjects (44.44%) were from the 41-49 years age group.35 (64.82%) were male and

19 (35.18%) were female. Echogenic structures were unilateral in 40 (74.07%) cases and bilateral in 14 (25.92%) cases.Among72 suspected stones 50 (69.44%) had posterior acoustic shadow and the rest 22 (30.56%) had no posterior acoustic shadow.Among those 72 twinkling artifacts-producing structures 39 were confirmed as renal stones. Out of 42 cases in which a twinkling artifact was present, the CT scan was positive in 39 and negative in only 3 cases, and in the rest 30 did not show the artifact.Conclusion:According to the findings of the prospective study, the twinkling artifact was a useful tool for the diagnosis of renal calculus when it was present in a color Doppler Ultrasonogram, and it had good diagnostic value when grayscale sonography was used in conjunction with a color Doppler Ultrasonogram.