P10.13: Comparison of conventional and PureWave Crystal probe in obstetric sonography

To compare the quality of ultrasound images acquired by the transducers using PureWave Crystal technology with those acquired by conventional probes in “difficult” obstetric subjects. A system was established to objectively compare the image quality acquired by different transducers. A predefined list of sonographic images were collected from 35 “difficult” obstetric patients using both conventional and new PureWave Crystal probes, and steps were specially prepared to avoid identification of the type of transducer probe being use by the operator. All images were rated using a 3-point scale by an independent assessor. A higher score represented a better image quality. The scores of each pair of images obtained by the two different ultrasound transducers were compared. The scores for images obtained by the PureWave Crystal probe were significant higher than those by a conventional probe, among all 10 structures examined. Images using PureWave Crystal were rated to enable highly diagnostic confidence (82.9%), and produce better image quality for the near field image (94.3%), the far field image (88.6%), and overall (94.3%). The current study described an objective method of comparing image quality acquired using different sonographic technologies. Ultrasound transducer incorporated with PureWave Crystal technology produces significantly better image quality for diagnostic purpose.