Abstract
Welcome to the first issue of 2024, and I hope that you find this edition a good mix of papers for you all to enjoy. I am writing this editorial just after a very successful Annual Scientific Meeting at York in December 2023. The quality of the talks delivered was extremely high, and hopefully we will be able to see some of these pieces of work submitted for publication over the coming months.
I would like to inform you of our new internal editorial team structure for the journal including a new post of Senior Editor, which will deputise for the Editor-in-Chief when needed. The post has been created as a development role to also support succession planning for our journal. I would like to announce Penelope Moores, Consultant Sonographer at James Paget University Hospital, as the new Senior Editor of Ultrasound. We have also increased our number of deputy editors and international deputy editors to help support the growing complexity of our workload from all the excellent work that is being submitted to the journal.
In this issue, I’m pleased to offer you all an exciting mix of original research and two case reports covering a range of topics including ultrasound-guided paediatric liver biopsies; UK-consensus on foetal echogenic bowel; adenomyosis assessment using a simple ultrasound measurement; point-of-care ultrasound (PoCUS) equipment assessment in aesthetics; ultrasound assessment for suspected Bakers cysts; detection of middle cerebral artery stenosis in stroke patients; shear wave elastography in the diagnosis of cirrhosis in chronic hepatitis C patients; cavernous haemangioma in the supraorbital region and finally, hepatic portal gas in a case of acute appendicitis in a paediatric patient.
The first publication in this issue is from a team in Turkey who share their experiences of ultrasound-guided paediatric liver biopsies.
Sevens and Chudleigh put forward the question whether a national consensus is required to guide sonographers in identifying and reporting foetal echogenic bowel. They present their findings from the first phase of a two-phase study demonstrating the national (England) current practice of sonographers defining echogenic foetal bowel.
A team from Australia look at the myometrial cervical ratio and its ability to improve the diagnosis of adenomyosis.
Park et al based in California, compare five PoCUS devices for use in ophthalmology and facial aesthetics. Image quality, cost, wireless capability, range of presets and battery life are all included in their assessments.
A team from the UK discuss the usefulness of ultrasound assessment of the posterior knee, and in most cases, Bakers/popliteal cysts. In the absence of a red flag symptom, is ultrasound really indicated given all the other pressures on imaging departments?
Toudou-Daouda et al based in a neurology centre in France look at transcranial ultrasound and contrast-enhanced computed tomographic (CT) angiography in cases of ischaemic stroke.
A team from Italy present their research on the effect of depth while using point-wave shear wave elastography in the surrogate diagnosis of cirrhosis in a cohort of 104 chronic hepatitis C patients. The study demonstrates the use of ultrasound-guided elastography in the diagnosis these patients.
A case study from India is presented demonstrating cavernous haemangioma in the supraorbital region. This rare occurrence is well documented in this case study.
The final offering in this edition is from a Japanese team presenting a case study of ultrasound and CT findings of hepatic portal vein gas associated with acute appendicitis in a 5-year-old paediatric patient.
I look forward to arranging the May 2024 edition of Ultrasound for you all. We have more excellent additions for you all to read and learn from.