Objective To evaluate the clinical value of tomography ultrasonic imaging (TUI) in staging carcinomas of the cervix.Methods Eighty-seven patients with biopsy proven cervical cancer who underwent transvaginal TUI examination were enrolled.Clinical and ultrasonic staging were based on the FIGO staging system.Surgical-pathological or MR results was taken as golden standard.Ultrasonic staging were compared with clinical staging.Tumor sizes of 38 cases of cervical cancers measured by TUI were recorded and compared with the pathological results.Results The overall accuracy of preoperative TUI staging was higher than that of preoperative clinical staging (91.95 ％ vs 81.60 ％,P ＜0.01).Mean size of the 38 malignant tumors was 2.5 cm×2.1 cm×2.2 cm by TUI and 2.6 cm×2.1 cm×2.3 cm by pathological samples (P ＞ 0.05).Conclusions TUI technology may be useful in the noninvasive examination of preoperative staging of carcinoma cervix.

Objective To explore the clinical value of real‐time elastography in evaluating rabbit carotid vulnerable plaque . Methods Thirty male New Zealand rabbits ( weighted from 2 .0 to 3 .0 kg) were all fed with high cholesterol diet for one week before balloon injury of their right common carotid arteries . Then they were categorized randomly into two groups which were continued fed by high cholesterol diet for 6 and 12 weeks ,respectively . Ultrasound and real‐time elastography of their right common carotid arteries were applied after their anesthesia by ear marginal vein . Strains of the carotid plaques were measured and analyzed statistically by two independent experienced sonographers . All the rabbits were sacrificed by air embolism method after all the examinations . The atherosclerotic rabbit common carotid lesions were dissected ,fixed for pathologic examination , and graded according to the standard of American Heart Association ( AHA) ,which were compared with the real‐time elastography findings . Results Real‐time elastography had well repeatability between different operators . Consistency between elastography and the AHA pathology was quite good ,with the Cohen′s kappa= 0 .803 (95% CI 0 .669 to 0 .938) . Strains of different regions in a plaque had statistically significant difference ( P <0 .000 1) . By using strain higher than 0 .37% ,the sensitivity and specificity of detecting a lipid core were 88 .0% and 81 .6% ,and area under ROC curve was 0 .902 (95% CI 0 .810 -0 .959 , P < 0 .0001) . Conclusions Real‐time elastography can display the inner elastic characteristics of the rabbit carotid plaques ,and may help evaluate the grading of a plaque . The strain value may help detect a necrotic core ,thereby help evaluate the stability of a plaque .