Editorial

Welcome to this May 2016 issue of Ultrasound. You will recall that February was a special issue on contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) outside the liver and included articles on a broad range of applications. Unfortunately, we were unable to fit in all of the articles that were submitted for February, and so this May issue includes two more excellent articles on contrast-enhanced ultrasound. Tenant and Gutteridge review the clinical use of CEUS in the kidney, discussing its safety and basic technique as well as its use in characterising the vascularity of a range of renal lesions. CEUS is useful in characterising indeterminate lesions, complex cysts and infective pathology and has fewer contraindications than CT or MRI. This article will serve as a valuable introduction to anyone new to CEUS. David et al. review the literature on the use of CEUS in the evaluation of parotid gland lesions. There is considerable overlap between the imaging features of benign and malignant tumours of this area using B-mode and Doppler. However, by demonstrating patterns of vascularisation, CEUS can help to differentiate between such lesions. Both of these articles are now available as CPD articles in a new contrast-enhanced ultrasound area of the BMUS online CPD system.

We begin this issue with two original research articles relating to ultrasound image quality. Welsh et al. report on a study to determine whether the Edinburgh Pipe Phantom can be used to detect failed elements in phased array transducers. Failed elements were simulated using strips of tape across the transducer face. Measurements of resolution integral using the pipe phantom were reduced in the presence of the tape strips suggesting failed elements could be detected by this method. Penetration depth into tissue mimicking material was also reduced. Perperidis et al. report on a study of the use of elevational spatial compounding to enhance image quality in echocardiography. Modern matrix transducers make it possible to alter the elevation of the B-mode image plane and produce several simultaneous 2D images separated by small elevation angles. By compounding these images, speckle and noise can be reduced, but with some loss of slice thickness resolution, which may result in the blurring of some cardiac features.

Continuing the theme of ultrasound transducers, Deane et al. report on a study of the use of different transducer types and measurement parameters in assessing external carotid artery stenosis in children with sickle cell disease. Such measurements are useful in addition to the normal transcranial Doppler assessment of the intracranial arteries. Linear array transducers were used with angle correction and phased arrays without angle correction to identify stenoses. Both approaches were useful but required different thresholds for stenosis detection.

In this issue, we also include a review by Sudula of the role of ultrasound imaging in the investigation of osteoarthritis of the hip joint and its use in the guidance of hip joint injections. We conclude with a case report on the prenatal diagnosis of a sacrococcygeal tumour. The authors discuss the difficulties in the differential diagnosis, which included fetus in fetu or teratoma. Fetal echocardiography was used to confirm fetal wellbeing until delivery, when histology confirmed mature teratoma.

Alongside this regular May issue of Ultrasound, we also publish the proceedings of the BMUS Annual Scientific Meeting, held in Cardiff last December. The proceedings contain details of the titles and authors of all lectures and posters presented at the meeting as well as all submitted abstracts. They are published as an online only supplement and can be found at http://ult.sagepub.com.