Ultrasound

Latest News


CME Content


Business briefs

ContextVision unveils ultrasound algorithmSpineAssist improves safety, precision

Journal Review

This month’s review glances through a survey of safety issues among practitioners of fetal ultrasonography. We ran into a study using computer-adided detection to differentiate benign from malignant breast tumors. In a different study, researchers inAsia discuss a new application to detect a bacterial pathogen associated with increasing levels of liver disease and even diabetes in Western and Eastern populations. We also found an interesting study advocating the use of “telesonography” to aid developing countries where ultrasound scanners represent the dominant -- sometimes the only -- imaging modality. Finally, we summarize a review of a new book about pediatric musculoskeletal disease.

Business briefs

GE 3T serves interventional suiteAloka reaches milestoneKodak XR film program stays on trackScImage bags VHA contractNovaRad adds billing module to RISPET pioneer turns to security

Sonoelastography shows strong performance in prostate cancer detection, but room for improvement remains when it comes to specificity, according to research from the Medical University Innsbruck in Austria, a leading center in prostate imaging research.

Buyers of Zonare Medical Systems’ latest iteration, the z.one ultra, will read images whose gain and brightness have been automatically adjusted using software advances. The same allows automatic spectral Doppler waveform tracing. Reader will be able to see the images as never before.

Ultrasound techniques that are improving prostate cancer detection, grading, and staging are useful in men presenting with an elevated level of prostate specific antigen. They offer therapeutic strategies and may avoid the need for prostatectomy. In the future, surgery may not be the number one treatment choice, according to speakers at a special focus session on imaging in patients with elevated PSA levels.

Esaote is looking to break into therapy with a new take on fusion imaging. Well known for its line of MyLab ultrasound systems and niche MR scanners, the Italian company is fusing data from the two modalities in which it specializes as well as CT. It is turning its ultrasound scanners into portable workstations that provide real-time guidance during interventions.

Contrast-enhanced ultrasound exams detecting residual tumor blood flow can accurately predict how effective transarterial chemoembolization is in the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma. The study had no false-negative results, and the one false positive came from an exam administered just one day after treatment. Ultrasound exams administered from two days to one month after treatment provided treatment results usually available only after three months using CT or MRI.

Recent innovations in multislice computed tomography (MSCT) and contrast-enhanced ultrasound have so dramatically improved the visualization of the small bowel wall and its vascularity that they are challenging the conventional workup of patients with acute or chronic inflammatory processes such as Crohn's disease.

Business Briefs

Orthopods hot-list MR, DRiCAD 4Q losses narrowMerge upgrades breast workstationVital Images teams with Cerner

Emergency medicine residents participating in a new study successfully performed a limited duplex ultrasound exam on patients with symptoms of acute deep vein thrombosis after just 90 minutes of training. Their conclusions were very similar to those of an experienced vascular technician examining the same patients.

Groin pain, whether acute or chronic, is a common clinical presentation that can be caused by a diverse array of disorders involving different anatomic structures. This makes definitive diagnosis difficult for even the most experienced clinician.

At a recent symposium on multislice CT, a physicist kicked off her lecture by presenting a big-screen image of a fetus inside a pregnant woman. Then she asked her audience a provocative question, "Is this a bad thing?"

In October 2006 the Society of Radiologists in Ultrasound brought diagnostic ultrasound's leadership together in San Francisco. Two days of lectures and debate led to a strategy statement defining a plan to maintain radiology's leadership over the modality.

A unique study documenting the prevalence of congenital heart disease in both adults and children in the same Québecois population found a striking increase in the number of adults with the condition. Investigators suggest that improved imaging and surgical techniques have helped children with congenital heart disease live longer.

Abdominal aortic aneurysms can be monitored more precisely and quickly using 3D ultrasound techniques than has been possible with 2D ultrasound. Researchers in the U.K. studied 30 consecutive patients with both methods and found almost no difference in the measurements of anteroposterior or transverse diameters. Three-D volume acquisition ultrasonography provided several advantages over traditional methods, however, including speed and the ability to compare new measurements with archived data.

Business briefs

Mindray plans color ultrasound releasesCytogen buries legal hatchet over MR contrastNightHawk shares take a beatingSonoSite shares slide after 4Q reportDigirad revenues slip

Pacific Coast Ultrasound of Los Alamitos, CA, operates at the nexus between medical need and self-indulgence, specializing in prenatal diagnostics and medically supervised 3D/4D prenatal elective ultrasounds. Throughout February, the center, which positions itself as a certified independent diagnostic facility, promotes a month-long tribute to Valentine’s Day.

Early 2007 has been a robust period for the publication of meaningful cardiac imaging research. The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke’s landmark comparison of noncontrast CT and MRI for stroke confirmed what many neuroradiologists suspected: MRI is the new gold standard for the initial diagnosis and subsequent evaluations of acute stroke. In another compelling study, Swedish researchers found that heart patients equipped with drug-eluting stents are more like to die in the three years following installation than patients who received bare metal stents.