Twinkle artifact

Twinkle artifact is the result of intrinsic machine noise seen with colour Doppler ultrasound ¹. It occurs as a focus of alternating colours on Doppler signal behind a reflective object (such as calculi), which gives the appearance of turbulent blood flow ². And it appears with or without an associated colour comet-tail artifact ³.

Twinkle artifact is more sensitive for detection of small stones (e.g. urolithiasis) than is acoustic shadowing, and is highly dependent on machine settings and is most pronounced when the reflecting surface is rough. One of these settings is the location of the focal zone: i.e. when the focal zone is located below a rough reflecting surface, the twinkling artifact becomes more obvious than when it is above it