A quantitative study on ultrasonographic texture analysis of injured porcine striped muscle induced by thermal and chemical factors / 中华医学超声杂志（电子版）

ABSTRACT

Objective To quantitatively analyze and compare the texture features of thermal and chemical lesions on the porcine striated muscle, in vitro extracted from high-frequency ultrasonograms using computer-assisted image analysis technique, and to investigate the application values. Methods The thermal lesion and chemical lesion were induced in vitro in porcine striated muscle by microwave ablation and anhydrous acetic acid injection, respectively. The two dimension (2D) ultrasonographic ifndings were qualitatively compared between the groups of thermal and chemical lesion models, in which eight textural features in geometric mathematics extracted from 2D ultrasonograms were quantitatively analyzed by a technique of computer-assisted image analysis named multiscale decomposition method of echo intensity of interface relfections. Results As expected, microwave ablation and anhydrous acetic acid caused signiifcant changes of several texture features extracted from ultrasonograms. There were significant differences between the normal group and microwave ablation group in grayscale mean (Mean), irregularity (IRGL) and periodicity of distribution (POD) as follows (Mean 1.9143±0.2914 vs 1.2334±0.3357, t=-5.306, P=0.000; IRGL 0.5577±0.0334 vs 0.5092±0.0459, t=-2.957, P=0.007; POD 0.000 27±0.000 005 vs 0.000 29±0.000 008, t=4.782, P=0.000). There were signiifcant differences between the normal group and anhydrous acetic acid injection group in number of blobs (NOB), size of blobs (SOB) and periodicity of distribution (POD) as follows (NOB 51.0324±13.6998 vs 31.6042±4.8315, t=4.633, P=0.000; SOB16.4843±3.9349 vs 25.6230±2.3555, t=6.903, P=0.000;POD0.000 26±0.000 015 vs 0.000 29±0.000 008, t=-4.459, P=0.000). For each group of injured regions, there were significant differences between the microwave ablation group and anhydrous acetic acid injection group in Mean, IRGL, NOB and SOB as follows (Mean 1.2664±0.2688 vs 1.9143±0.2914, t=-5.661, P=0.000; IRGL 0.5220±0.0422 vs 0.5577±0.0334, t=-2.295, P=0.032;NOB51.0324±13.6998 vs 34.5856±2.6362, t=4.048, P=0.000;SOB16.4843±3.9349 vs 25.3176±2.3501, t=-6.676, P=0.000). Conclusion Technique of computer-assisted image analysis named multiscale decomposition method of echo intensity of interface relfections, based on multiscale blob features extraction, was useful to differentiate ultrasonic texture features between the groups injured in our study, which established quantitative muscle ultrasound as a practical and reliable tool for the muscle injury diagnosis to distinguish the structural changes induced by different physiochemical factors.