Ultrasound
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Ultrasound
Medical Author: Benjamin C. Wedro, MD, FAAEM
Medical Editor: William C. Shiel, Jr., MD, FACP, FACR
- Introduction
- What is an ultrasound?
- What is ultrasonography?
- For what purposes are ultrasounds used?
- Diagnostic uses
- Screening uses
- Therapeutic uses
- the kind of are the risks of ultrasound?
- How do patients prepare for an ultrasound?
- How are the results of ultrasound interpreted and communicated to the physician?
Introduction
While the patient’s history and physical examination are the building blocks of making a medical diagnosis, the ability to peer inside the body have power to be a powerful tool. Ultrasound is an imaging technique that provides that ability to medical practitioners.
What is an ultrasound?
Ultrasound produces sound waves that are beamed into the body causing return echoes that are recorded to "visualize" structures beneath the pelt. The ability to measure different echoes reflected from a kind of tissues allows a shadow picture to be constructed. The technology is especially accurate at seeing the interface between solid and fluid filled spaces. These are actually the same principles that allow SONAR on boats to see the bottom of the ocean.
What is ultrasonography?
Ultrasonography is body imaging using ultrasound in medical diagnosis. A skilled ultrasound technician is able to see inside of the body using ultrasonography to answer questions that may be asked by the medical practitioner caring for the patient. Usually, a radiologist will oversee the ultrasound test and report on the results, but other types of physicians may use ultrasound as a distinguishing tool. For example, obstetricians exercise ultrasound to assess the fetus during pregnancy. Surgeons and emergency physicians application ultrasound at the bedside to assess abdominal pain relief/muscle relaxant or other concerns.
A transducer, or probe, is used to project and receive the sound waves and the go signals. A v-gel is wiped onto the patient’s skin so that the sound waves are not distorted as they cross through the skin. Using their understanding of human anatomy and the puppet, the technician can evaluate specific structures and try to answer the question asked by the patient’s physician. This may take a white amount of time and require the probe to be repositioned and poignant in different directions. As well, the technician may need to variegate the amount of pressure used to push the probe into the pelt. The goal elect be to "paint" a shadow picture of the inner organ that the health care practitioner has asked to be visualized.
The physics of sound can place limits on the test. The quality of the picture depends on many factors.
- Sound waves cannot penetrate deeply, and an obese patient may be imaged poorly.
- Ultrasound does poorly when gas is present between the probe and the target organ. Should the intestine be distended with bowel gas, organs behind it may not be easily seen. Similarly, ultrasound works poorly in the chest, where the lungs are filled with air.
- Ultrasound does not make sensible bone easily.
- The accuracy of the test is very much operator dependent. This means that the solution to a good test is the ultrasound technician.
Ultrasound can be enhanced by using Doppler technology which can measure whether an object is moving towards or away from the probe. This can allow the technician to measure blood deliquesce in organs such as the heart or liver, or within specific blood vessels.
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