(Wednesday, 7/17/2019) 1:45 PM - 3:45 PM
Room: 303
Purpose: In a previous study by our group, it was found that anatomical phantoms with moderate complexity can provide a valuable training experience to radiology residents; demonstrating a significant increase, 26±14%, p<0.003, in the detection rate pre- and post-training[1]. In this study, a range of novel anatomical breast ultrasound training phantoms and a pedagogical plan were developed for use as an in-service training tool for sonographers. The anatomical phantoms had moderate technical complexity associated with them and simulated the sonographic characteristics of the different breast tissues and contained a range of lesion pathology such as cysts, Mondor’s disease, fibroadenoma and angular, spiculated lesions representing malignant findings.
Methods: Design specifications for the anatomical breast phantom were developed through consultation between Radiologists, breast US sonographers as well as taking into consideration the typical profile of patients presenting to a large Radiology Department. A pedagogical plan was developed for use with these phantoms which included the following elements (i)didactic lecture, (ii) pre-training knowledge test, (iii) task-specific, self-directed practice training period using dedicated anatomical breast phantoms with associated training material for lesion-specific optimization training, (iv)peer review session and (v)post-training knowledge test.
Results: The pedagogical plan was implemented (Figure 1) and the impact of the self-directed training period was evaluated through three approaches in order to achieve triangulation (i)pre- and post-training session knowledge test, (ii)peer review session of images obtained using the dedicated phantoms and (iii)analytics data related to the image optimization controls 1 month pre-training session, 1 month post- and 3 months post-training session.
Conclusion: The anatomical breast phantoms provided a moderately complex “life-like simulation� of breast tissue for ultrasound imaging which was found to be able to effectively demonstrate the impact of different image optimization controls and to help individuals refine their scanning technique.[1] Browne et al JACR 2018
Keywords
Optimization, Ultrasonics, Quality Assurance
Taxonomy
IM- Ultrasound : Phantoms - physical
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