Color Doppler Twinkling Artifact in Diagnosis of Tuberculous Pleuritis: A Comparison with Gray-Scale Ultrasonography and Computed Tomography

The aim of this study was to determine whether twinkling artifact (TA) detected on color Doppler ultrasonography can effectively determine the presence of pleural calcification compared with computed tomography (CT) and differentiate tuberculous pleuritis (TP) and cancerous pleuritis (CP). One hundred six cases of TP and 26 cases of CP were scanned using gray-scale ultrasonography (GSU) and TA to determine the presence of pleural calcification. With CT as the reference standard, 63.3% and 79.6% of patients with pleural calcification were identified with GSU and TA, respectively. The detection rate of TA was higher than that of GSU (p = 0.039). For the whole study population, 37.1% were identified as having pleural calcification with CT, significantly higher than the proportion detected with GSU (25.8%, p = 0.001), but not different from that detected with TA (41.7%, p = 0.327). The sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of TA were 79.6%, 80.7%, 80.3%, 70.9% and 87.0%, respectively. The detection rate of TA was significantly higher than that of GSU (p <0.001). When GSU was combined with TA (GSUTA), the positive rate in the TP group was significantly higher than that in the CP group (χ2 < 0.001). In conclusion, TA is comparable to CT and more sensitive than GSU in the detection of pleural calcification. Evaluation for GSUTA on pleura may help to differentiate TP from CP.