"A high colour gain makes this ubiquitous artifact more prominent 1. In such cases even slight transducer movements can induce inhomogeneous colour noise filling the entire colour box. Reducing the gain can alleviate this to some extent, but may also remove the actual flow signal especially from slow flow blood vessels."
"In many cases the flash artifact can easily be reduced simply by slower fanning with the transducer during duplex colour Doppler imaging. The flash artifact can make colour Doppler interrogation of structures influenced heavily by respiratory/cardiac movements difficult, if not impossible. This is a commonly encountered problem e.g. in the evaluation of the left lobe of the liver."
"It is also good to bear in mind that anechoic structures (e.g. gallbladder, simple cysts) are more prone to produce flash artifacts than more echogenic tissues 1. This is caused by the colour write priority, as in the absence of significant B-mode signal the spurious colour signal caused by the artifact is erroneously displayed 2. In those rare cases where this poses a diagnostic difficulty, the colour write priority setting of the scanner can be adjusted to reduce the artifact."
"The flash artifact is caused by movement of reflective tissues (e.g. due to respiration), or the transducer, which generates a Doppler shift, and thus a colour signal 1. Modern US devices utilise various noise/motion suppression techniques to minimise this artifact, nevertheless it remains omnipresent especially in anechoic structures where the motion discriminator algorithm cannot suppress it as easily 2."
Expected headings
"Physics"