A Comparative Study on the Influence of Phantoms and Test objects on Quality Control Measurements in B-mode ultrasound systems: preliminary results

Image quality control tests on medical ultrasound systems are often performed by technicians using ultrasound phantoms and results may depend on scanner settings and operator experience as well as phantom features. The aim of the present study is the evaluation of variations on some features of the B-mode image when the ultrasound system is tested by means of different ultrasound phantoms during a routine quality control process: ultrasound images of two models of ultrasound phantoms with very different attenuation are collected and processed from three ultrasound systems, each one equipped with 2 probes, in order to evaluate the measurement dispersion in low contrast penetration depth (LCPD), high contrast spatial resolution (HCSR) and accuracy in distance measurements (ADM). Results are explained and discussed: for most of the probes no significant differences in ADM has been observed, on the other hand discrepancies up to 40 percent have been measured in HCSR. All of the probes have shown significant differences up to 20 percent in LCPD measurements between the phantoms.

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