Ultrasound

CHICAGO - Point-of-care ultrasound has become ubiquitous in medicine, but radiologists still have a critical role in the modality with ultrasound’s training and promotion.

GE Healthcare axquires U-Systems Inc., developer of the Automated Breast Ultrasound, a system used as a supplement to mammography for asymptomatic women with dense breasts and no prior interventions.

Minimally invasive musculoskeletal ultrasound provides a fast, accurate diagnosis of rheumatic diseases, among other benefits, researchers said.

Breast ultrasound is superior to mammography for initial evaluation in symptomatic women aged 30 to 39 and should be the primary imaging modality.

U-Systems’ somo •v Automated Breast Ultrasound (ABUS) system is approved for use in combination with mammography for women with dense breast tissue.

It is most cost-effective to screen men over the age of 65 for AAA twice than not to screen them at all.

Optical ultrasound tomography holds promise for color imaging brain traumas to breast cancers. The head of one start-up venture explains this new technology.

Cancer screening for patients with alcoholic liver damage may not be cost effective due to their low incidence of hepatocellular carcinoma deaths.

A specific type of ultrasound called speckle-tracking echocardiography may detect heart disease complications from rheumatoid arthritis.

Contrast-enhanced ultrasounds are an effective complementary tool in following up patients who undergo endovascular repair for abdominal aortic aneurysm.

Researchers found ABUS takes three minutes of physician interpretation time compared with 20 to 30 minutes for hand-held ultrasounds.

The Vivid E9 Breakthrough 2012 includes a 4-D transducer for transesophageal echocardiography, as well as workflow tools.

Ultrasound-based transient elastography provides excellent diagnostic accuracy in identifying cirrhosis due to recurrent hepatitis C following liver transplantation.

Siemens Healthcare’s latest release of the ACUSON SC2000 volume imaging ultrasound system has received FDA 510(k) clearance, the company announced.

While the “ultrasound stethoscope” may indeed be moving from science fiction to reality, radiologists remain at the helm for the majority of ultrasound procedures. That’s despite the growth of bedside point-of-care ultrasound, according to a new study published the November issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology.

Doppler ultrasound can help determine if a baby is allergic to cow’s milk based on the thickness and blood-vessel density in the bowel wall, a team of Brazilian researchers has found.

The reach of portable or compact ultrasound is increasing, with the machines getting smaller, better and more adaptable. In fact, this segment of the market is outpacing the overall ultrasound market.

For a response concerns about nonradiologists using ultrasound technology, we spoke to Christopher L. Moore, MD, assistant professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Yale University School of Medicine, who co-authored the New England Journal of Medicine review article behind the initial story.

Another technology recently introduced is the U-Systems somo-v INSIGHT whole breast ultrasound. The U-Systems (the only company developing this technology) currently has 510(k)-clearance for adjunctive diagnostic use with mammography, and will be seeking approval to use it for a dense breast tissue indication.

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Ultrasound elastography is shown to raise sensitivity by 24 percent for preoperative assessment of axillary metastases in suspected breast cancer. Meanwhile, microbubbles identify sentinel lymph nodes, minimizing operations, according to researchers presenting at ECR 2011.

Thanks to it being a safe, easy-to-use modality and the machines becoming increasingly smaller and more portable, clinicians ranging from trauma surgeons to cardiologists to anesthesiologists, are finding uses for ultrasound. But point-of-care ultrasound offers a trade-off between modality expertise and speed of diagnosis.

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Italian doctors launched a study when introducing handheld ultrasound diagnosis into their hospital, comparing diagnostic accuracy for both trainees and experts against the accuracy of standard Doppler ultrasound imaging.

Transvaginal ultrasound demonstrates good sensitivity and specificity for detecting endometrial cancer, a study from the University College, London. finds. But that doesn’t mean it’s suited for use in the general population just yet. The researchers found transvaginal ultrasound is better for high-risk groups prone to endometrial cancer, and especially in the management of postmenopausal women undergoing pelvic scans for reasons other than vaginal bleeding.

Sonography aspires to pushbutton simplicity, but the nature of the technology stands in the way.

U.S. hospitals could save nearly $22 million annually by deemphasizing CT in favor of diagnostic ultrasound as the frontline imaging test for suspected appendicitis. Such a change would also spare many patients unnecessary exposure to ionizing radiation from CT, according to financial evaluation and meta-analysis by Laurence Parker, Ph.D., an imaging economics researcher at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.

The use of ultrasound needle guidance improves the performance, outcomes, and cost-effectiveness of knee injections in people with osteoarthritis, according to research presented last week at the American College of Rheumatology Annual Scientific Meeting in Atlanta.

Not only is it possible to detect aneuploidy and structural fetal anomalies with sonography during the first trimester, but doing so allows for better treatment options, according to a study published in the Journal of Ultrasound in Medicine.