Diagnosing Bladder Outlet Obstruction Using Non-invasive Decorrelation-Based Ultrasound Imaging: A Feasibility Study in Healthy Male Volunteers

A feasibility study on the applicability of an ultrasound decorrelation method to urinary flow imaging was carried out in 20 healthy male volunteers, to provide a basis for a non-invasive approach to diagnose bladder outlet obstruction. Each volunteer voided five times in a flow meter in standing position. During each voiding, ultrasound radiofrequency frames were acquired transperineally at different flow rates. The results indicated that the decrease in correlation (decorrelation) of ultrasound radiofrequency signals had no unique relation with flow rate, but decreased distinctively with urinary flow velocity. In most of the healthy volunteers, the decorrelation was small because of the low flow velocity. However, because of the different flow velocities in volunteers, the variation in slope between volunteers was statistically significant. Therefore, it is probably possible to use the decorrelation method to differentiate between healthy persons and patients with obstruction.