Technology & Digital Tools Flashcards

Which DICOM tag stores the patient's date of birth in an echocardiography image file?

Answer: (0010,0030)

DICOM tag (0010,0030) is the Patient Birth Date attribute within the Patient module.

In a PACS-integrated echo lab, which protocol is used to transfer images from the echo machine to the archive server?

Answer: DICOM C-STORE

DICOM C-STORE is the service operation used to push image objects from an acquisition device to a storage server.

What does the term 'frame rate' refer to in digital echocardiography?

Answer: Number of 2D image frames acquired per second

Frame rate (frames per second) describes how many complete 2D images are captured each second, determining temporal resolution.

Which knob or control on a modern echo machine adjusts the overall gain applied uniformly across the entire image depth?

Answer: Master gain

Master gain amplifies all returning signals equally regardless of depth, brightening or darkening the entire 2D image.

A sonographer observes that the ECG trace displayed on the echo machine is inverted. Which component is most likely misconnected?

Answer: Right arm (RA) and left arm (LA) electrodes swapped

Swapping the RA and LA leads inverts the polarity of Lead I, which is the ECG trace displayed on most echo systems.

In speckle-tracking echocardiography (STE) software, what raw data type does the algorithm analyze?

Answer: 2D grayscale B-mode image frames

STE tracks unique acoustic speckle patterns across sequential 2D grayscale frames to derive myocardial strain.

Which image quality metric describes the ability of an echo system to distinguish two closely spaced reflectors along the beam axis?

Answer: Axial resolution

Axial resolution is determined by the spatial pulse length and defines the minimum depth separation between two distinguishable reflectors.