Usefulness of twinkling Artifact for urinary Stone Measurement

The purpose of this study was to investigate the usefulness of twinkling artifact (TA) ultrasonography in the evaluation of urinary stone measurement. We measured the different size of granite soil stones by various ultrasonic measuring methods. Then, the results were compared with the actual stone size for accuracy of the various measurement methods. TA is different from stone measurements depending on stone size (p< 0.001). When the stone size was less than 6 mm, the measured diameter of the posterior shadow was most similar to the actual stone size. In the method of measuring the TA diameter in the color Doppler mode, an overestimation of about 1.5 mm was observed when the stone size was smaller than 6 mm, and an overestimation of 0.4 mm was observed at the size larger than 9 mm. TA showed the most accuracy on stones> 9 mm than other ultrasonic measurement methods. TA may be used as a complementary method when the urinary stones size measurement is ambiguous in the B mode.