Ultrasound Artifacts

Clutter/Flash

unwanted Doppler display patterns typically caused by structure motion or breathing

Clutter/Flash Artifact

Blooming/Blossoming

color obscures the gray scale display of soft plaque because the resolution of color Doppler is lower than the gray scale

Blooming artifact

Mirror Imaging

appears as a second copy of the structure deeper on the image

Mirror Imaging Artifact (Doppler)

Mirror Imaging Artifact

Aliasing

misrepresentation of the Doppler signal due to PRF limitations

Aliasing artifact

Twinkle

vertical stripe of mosaic color pattern seen posterior to highly reflective objects (not related to moving blood flow)

Twinkle artifact

Cross Talk

second copy of the Doppler tracing is displayed on the opposite side of the baseline

Cross Talk Artifact

electrical interference

appears as repetitive, consistent artifactual echoes demonstrated on the Doppler tracing

Beam Width artifact

- Far field of the beam diverges and becomes wider than the margins of the transducer itself

- The divergent beam encounters a strong reflector that is sent back to the transducer which is assumed to be from the main beam

Beam Width Doppler Artifact

Range Ambiguity

unwanted reflected information from locations other than the desired sample location

Spectral Broadening

the filling of the spectral window

Wall Filter Saturation

Low filter settings causes "audible thumping" of strong signals that causes the appearance of bright spikes on the Doppler tracing

Refraction

incorrect placement of the object location on the image

Refraction Artifact

Edge Shadowing

a form of shadowing extending downward from the edge of a curved reflector

Edge Shadowing Artifact

Multipath

an artifact caused by the beam bouncing off several reflectors before returning to the transducer

Reverberation

caused by the repeated reflection of sound waves back and forth between two closely spaced interfaces

Reverberation Artifact

Ring Down

type of reverberation caused by tissue-gas interface

Ring Down Artifact

Comet Tail

a type of reverberation artifact caused by highly reflective objects

Comet Tail Artifact

Side lobes

lobes created by single element transducers

Grating lobes

lobes created by linear array transducers

Dynamic Aperture

using only a few elements to listen for the returning info

Subdicing

each element is divided into subelements which are wired together to operate as a single element

Apodization

varying the voltage applied to different elements in an array that are forming the same pulse

Lobe Artifact

Noise/Speckle

Result of scattering due to the rough surface characteristics, partial constructive and destructive interference occurs resulting in a "speckle" appearance of the tissue

Posterior Enhancement

Clean Shadowing

Dirty Shadowing

Focal Zone (banding) Artifact

Focal Zone Banding

artifact seen with multiple focal zones