• Joon-Il Choi, Seung Eun Jung, Pyo Nyun Kim, Sang Hoon Cha, Jae Kwan Jun, Hoo-Yeon Lee, and Eun-Cheol Park.
• Department of Radiology, Seoul St Mary's Hospital, School of Medicine, Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Korea (J.-I.C., S.E.J.); Department of Radiology and Research Institute of Radiology, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea (P.N.K.); Department of Radiology, Ansan Hospital, College of Medicine, Korea University, Ansan-si, Korea (S.H.C.); National Cancer Control Institute, National Cancer Center, Goyang-si, Korea (J.K.J.); Department of Social Medicine, College of Medicine, Dankook University, Cheonan-si, Korea (H.-Y.L.); and Department of Preventive Medicine and Institute of Health Services Research, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea (E.-C.P.).
• J Ultrasound Med. 2014 Jun 1;33(6):985-95.

ObjectivesThe purpose of this study was to investigate the quality of ultrasound (US) imaging for hepatocellular carcinoma screening.MethodsThe investigation was performed at all medical institutes participating in the National Cancer Screening Program in Korea. For assessment of personnel, we inquired who was performing the US screenings. For phantom image evaluation, the dead zone, vertical and horizontal measurements, axial and lateral resolution, sensitivity, and gray scale/dynamic range were evaluated. For clinical image evaluation, US images of patients were evaluated in terms of the standard images, technical information, overall image quality, appropriateness of depth, foci, annotations, and the presence of any artifacts.ResultsFailure rates for phantom and clinical image evaluations at general hospitals, smaller hospitals, and private clinics were 20.9%, 24.5%, 24.1% and 5.5%, and 14.8% and 9.5%, respectively. No statistically significant difference was observed in the failure rates for the phantom images among groups of different years of manufacture. For the clinical image evaluation, the results of radiologists were significantly better than those of other professional groups (P = .0001 and .0004 versus nonradiology physicians and nonphysicians, respectively). The failure rate was also higher when the storage format was analog versus digital (P < .001).ConclusionsApproximately 20% of US scanners failed the phantom image evaluation. The year of scanner manufacture was not significantly associated with the results of the phantom image evaluation. The quality of the clinical images obtained by radiologists was the best.© 2014 by the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine.

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