Toward a Standardization of Ultrasound Scanners for Dynamic Contrast-Enhanced Ultrasonography: Methodology and Phantoms

The standardization of ultrasound scanners for dynamic contrast-enhanced ultrasonography (DCE-US) is mandatory for evaluation of clinical multicenter studies. We propose a robust method using a phantom for measuring the variation of the harmonic signal intensity obtained from the area under the time-intensity curve versus various contrast-agent concentrations. The slope of this measured curve is the calibration parameter. We tested our method on two devices from the same manufacturer (AplioXV and Aplio500, Toshiba, Tokyo, Japan) using the same settings as defined for a French multicenter study. The Aplio500's settings were adjusted to match the slopes of the AplioXV, resulting in the following settings on the Aplio500: at 3.5 MHz: MI = 0.15; CG = 35 dB and at 8 MHz: MI = 0.10; CG = 32 dB. This calibration method is very important for future DCE-US multicenter studies.