Ultrasound quality assurance is often
regarded as not efficient or too cost-intensive. As part of the Mammography
Screening Program started in Austria, ultrasound is included in primary
diagnostics. This is unique for European Mammography Screening Programs and
raises the need for technical quality assurance (TQA) for ultrasound devices.
While mammography TQA follows certain protocols and guidelines especially
designed for this purpose, no such documents exist for ultrasound so far. To
fulfill this need a test concept for routine ultrasound TQA focusing on detecting
transducer errors without expensive equipment was developed and first results
are presented.
A quality assurance test protocol for
ultrasound devices was developed and evaluated in the course of the Austrian
Screening Pilot Project. Within this protocol simple and fast routine tests on
a monthly basis should guarantee an optimal image quality and transducer
performance by mainly focusing on detecting transducer errors before they
become visible. Evaluation was done by inhouse software.
Preliminary results obtained during the
pilot phase of the program revealed that within 69 institutions comprising 78
ultrasound devices and 89 transducers 12 (13.48%) severe transducer failures were found which
were not recognized.
We can prove that even without
sophisticated and expensive equipment such as phantoms it is possible to detect
failures and thus improve image quality by using just simple settings. Technical quality assurance is essential in ultrasound
diagnostics and should be more focused on. However, it need not be
cost-intensive or complicated.
