Ultrasound Physics: Artifacts Jeopardy Template

Color Doppler

Spectral Doppler

Gray Scale

Harmonics

Power Doppler

100

In color doppler ultrasound, this artifact causes blood flow to display as the incorrect color when the flow is too fast for the machines sampling limit.

Color Aliasing

100

In spectral doppler ultrasound, this artifact makes blood flow velocities to "wrap around" the spectral display when the velocity exceeds the system's sampling limit.

Spectral Aliasing

100

This artifact causes structures behind fluid filled tissue to appear with a hyperechoic column because sound travels through fluid will less attenuation.

Posterior Acoustic Enhancement

100

This artifact occurs when harmonic imaging fails to display certain areas of tissue, making parts of the image appear missing or darker.

Harmonic Dropout

100

In power doppler ultrasound, this artifact appears as a color continuously changing rapidly while behind a highly reflective object, when there is no real flow.

Twinkling Artifact

200

In color doppler ultrasound, this artifact causes a false burst of color to appear when tissue or the transducer moves, even when there is no blood flow.

Flash Artifact

200

In spectral doppler ultrasound, this artifact causes the waveform to appear thicker or wider, making it seem as if there was a wider range of blood flow velocities than actually exists.

Spectral Broadening

200

This artifact occurs when sound bounces repeatedly between two highly reflective surfaces, creating multiple spaced echoes on the image.

Reverberation Artifact

200

In harmonic ultrasound, this artifact makes anechoic or fluid-filled areas appear falsely bright.

Pseudoechogenic Artifact

200

In power doppler ultrasound, this artifact falsely shows blood flow in still tissue, caused usually by movement, probe motion, or patient breathing.

Pseudoflow

300

In color doppler ultrasound, this artifact makes color "spill" out beyond the blood vessel boarders, making the vessel appear larger than it really is.

Color Bleeding

300

In spectral doppler ultrasound, this artifact makes it more difficult to determine whether the blood is moving toward or away from the transducer, most commonly because the doppler angle is almost perpendicular.

Directional Ambiguity

300

This artifact occurs when sound reflects off of a highly reflective surface before returning to the transducer, this creates a false duplicated image on the opposite side of a strong reflector.

Mirror Image Artifact

300

This artifact occurs when low frequency noise appears on the image, obscuring real structures.

Harmonic Clutter

300

This artifact occurs when movement from the patient, tissue, or transducer produces color signals that are not true blood flow.

Motion Artifact

400

In color doppler ultrasound, this artifact causes an area or the entire blood vessel to show no color even though blood is flowing.

Color Dropout

400

In spectral doppler ultrasound, this artifact creates a duplicate waveform on the opposite side of the baseline, showing falsely that there is flow in both directions.

Mirror Image

400

This artifact occurs when the sound beam bends as it passes between tissues of different speeds, making structures appear in the incorrect place.

Refraction Artifact

400

This artifact makes a tissue or wall appear thicker than it actually is due to volume effects or harmonic beam distortion.

Pseudothickening

400

This artifact produces random color signals or noise on the image due to an interference from nearby equipment or the machine itself.

Electronic Interference

500

Guess The Artifact: Color Doppler