Standards in ophthalmic ultrasonography

Summary

Different standards have been recommended in the literature for equipment checks, data declaration, examination techniques and echogram evaluation. The different background is elucidated and the correlation to internationally accepted recommendations of standardization authorities is shown. An equipment check program was developed which can be applied by trained technicians under hospital conditions. It provides comparable data which can be presented in generally accepted units, like dB or MHz. Use of these methods allowed measurement-based studies on the influence of selected changes of technical parameters on diagnostic criteria in the echograms. The results are shown using intraocular melanoblastoma echograms and orbital echograms (especially endocrine orbitopathy) taken with A- and B-scan techniques. Further development of apparatus and transducers for ophthalmic ultrasonography should be based on such studies. Empirical ultrasonography without data check, however, or with inadequate data checks, yields ultrasonographic results which neither can be compared nor reliably be evaluated.