Assessment of the Physical and Chemical Properties of Colocasia esculenta (Taro) Corm Gel and its Use In Ultrasound Imaging
Visibility Metric For An Alternative Sonographic Gel
Keywords:
Physical and chemical properties, taro corm, ultrasound gel, ultrasound image qualityAbstract
The high cost and unavailability of consumable supplies such as ultrasound gel affect the number and quality of ultrasound procedures in low-resource healthcare settings. This study evaluates the chemical properties of taro corm gel and its potential use as an alternative sonographic gel to produce quality ultrasound images. Spreadability, viscosity, and pH evaluation tests were done to identify the chemical properties of taro corm gel. The ultrasound images obtained from the gelatin-based ultrasound phantom were evaluated using the 10-cm Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) and a 5-point Likert scale to assess the spatial resolution and image sharpness. Seven radiology residents who were blinded to the type of gel used were asked to evaluate the 26 ultrasound images obtained using each gel type. A pilot study was undertaken to determine the interrater agreement of the researcher-made research tool for evaluating the quality of the ultrasound images. The statistical analysis of the data gathered from the tests for chemical properties and evaluation of the ultrasound image quality revealed that the taro corm gel exhibited a significantly higher spreading ability, greater alkalinity, and less viscosity than the commercial ultrasound gel (CUG). In addition, the spatial resolution and sharpness of the ultrasound images obtained from using the taro corm gel and the CUG were not significantly different, showing that the images obtained using taro corm gel were at par with the images obtained using CUG.
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