Diagnosis of Digital Clubbing by High Frequency Ultrasound Imaging.pdf

1、Background: The current used methods for diagnose of clubbing havedrawbacks. This study is to test a novel and convenient method for thediagnosis of digital clubbing using high frequency ultrasound.
　　Methods: The ind

2、ex fingers from a healthy control group without digitalclubbing and a patientgroup with digital clubbing were examined byultrasound . The morphology ofthe clubbingfin-gers was observed. The softtissue depth under the nai

3、l (SDUN), the interphalangeal depth(IPD) and thedistal phalangeal depth (DPD) were measured. The ratio ofDPD andIPD(DPD/IPD) was calculated.
　　Results: The nails, the soft tissue under the nails, the digital bones and

4、 thedigitaljoint were clearly observed by ultrasound. The mean SDUN was0.16±O.Olcm for the control group and 0.284±0.02cm for the patient group(p<0.01). By both naked eyes observation and ultrasoundmeasurement of the ult

5、rasound images, the SDUNs in patient group were bigger than the SDUNs in the healthy control group. The DPDs were bigger than the IPDsin the patient group, while in the healthy control group, the DPDs weresmaller than th

6、e IPDs. The mean DPD/IPD ratio was 0.86±0.04cm in thecontrol group and l.077±O.llcm in the patient (p<0.05).
　　Conclusion: We present a new, easy and convenient method for thediagnosis of Digitalclubbing using ultraso