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A publication by ARDMS - The globally recognized standard of excellence in sonography - www.ARDMS.org
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Get connected with NewsWire! This bi-weekly e-newsletter from the American Registry for Diagnostic Medical Sonography® (ARDMS®), offers its Registrants and members of the sonography community current and innovative news and technology related to the field of sonography. |
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| Ultrasound Changes Care of Some Patients with Rheumatic Conditions
Ultrasound can be used to make an appropriate decision regarding care for patients with rheumatic conditions involving the hands and feet, according to a study performed at St. Joseph's Healthcare/ McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada.
The study included 62 patients. Results showed that, "approximately 50% of patients had a change in management following ultrasound evaluation," said Srinivasan Harish, lead author of the study. "Certainty in clinical findings significantly increased following ultrasound, ranging from 24% to 56% for various findings," he said.
"Sonography appears to play a key role in helping rheumatologists determine whether or not disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) would be useful in patients who are difficult to assess clinically. Results from our study showed that there was a significant decrease in the use of these drugs when these patients had an ultrasound examination.
"Rheumatologists typically request plain radiographs as their primary imaging modality for rheumatologic diseases. However our study shows that ultrasound may play a more influential role," said Dr. Harish.
View the article online.
Article written by staff at medicalnewsbase.com and adapted for the purposes of this newsletter.
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Maternal Obesity Linked to Lower Ultrasound Ability
Maternal weight may affect the ability of ultrasound to detect fetal abnormalities during the second trimester, according to research published in the May Obstetrics & Gynecology.
Jodi S. Dashe, M.D., of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, and colleagues analyzed data from ultrasound examinations given during pregnancies of 18 to 24 weeks over a five-year period. These included 10,112 standard examinations and 1,098 targeted examinations. The detection of an anomalous fetus was defined as the identification of a major abnormality of a relevant organ system and anomalies were verified using a database of birth defects.
As women's body mass index (BMI) rose, the detection of anomalous fetuses decreased. For normal BMI, detection with standard and targeted ultrasonography was 66 and 97 percent, respectively. In the highest class of obesity, these values fell to 25 and 75 percent, respectively. The residual anomaly risk -- delivering an infant with major anomaly after no abnormality was found on ultrasound -- rose from 0.4 percent in women with normal BMI to 1.0 percent in obese women.
"Based on our findings, we suggest that when performing ultrasonography in overweight or obese pregnancies, counseling may need to be modified to reflect the limitations of both standard and targeted ultrasonography. For example, after a normal ultrasound evaluation, obese women without diabetes may still have up to 1 percent risk of a major anomaly -- including some anomalies not detectable ultrasonographically," the authors wrote.
View the article online.
Article written by staff at modernmedicine.com and adapted for the purposes of this newsletter.
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Ultrasound Can Help Low-Risk Patients Avoid Invasive Thyroid Biopsy
The prevalence of benign thyroid nodules is high and there are certain ultrasound features, suggesting malignancy, that can help radiologists determine whether or not a biopsy is needed, according to a study performed at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center, San Francisco, CA.
A total of 245 patients (54 patients with cancer, 191 patients with no cancer) were analyzed. "Our study supports previous data showing that some sonographic features of thyroid nodules are suggestive of malignant nature and should lead to biopsy," said Dorra Sellami, MD, lead author of the study. "These features include microcalcifications (which increase the risk of cancer 16 folds), a shape taller than wide (increases the risk of cancer 3.7 folds) and hypoechogenicity (two-fold increase in risk of cancer). Other features may suggest that a nodule is benign, such as hyperechogenicity (40% increase in risk of cancer)," she said. "Current clinical
guidelines recommend biopsy of all lesions greater than or equal to 10 mm. However, in our study of patients with no thyroid cancer, 49% had at least one nodule greater than or equal to 10 mm," said Dr. Sellami.
"Very few thyroid nodules are obviously malignant or benign. Most thyroid nodules we see by ultrasound are indeterminate, and in order to rule out cancer, a fine needle aspiration is often recommended. This results in a ratio of ten benign nodules sampled for one cancer diagnosed," she said.
"Our findings will help radiologists and clinicians determine which nodules are definitely not suspicious and can be watched. I think that our study is one step toward decreasing the number of invasive procedures in patients with benign thyroid nodules-while maintaining the same vigilance in detecting thyroid cancer in its early stages," said Dr. Sellami.
View the article online.
Article written by staff at sciencecodex.com and adapted for the purposes of this newsletter.
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Improved Medical Ultrasounds
A key part of a medical ultrasound scanner is the transducer probe used to convert sound waves to electrical signals and vice versa.
Traditionally, such transducers are made from piezoelectric materials, which produce a voltage when stressed and which deform when an external voltage is applied to them.
But better transducers can be made using the principle of the condenser microphone--something with a back plane and a thin membrane that vibrates.
To compete with traditional piezoelectric ultrasound transducers, though, capacitive transducers must contain enormous electric fields. This has been hard to accomplish in the past, but researchers have made considerable progress using many of the same techniques that are applied to the fabrication of microelectronic devices.
Soon you can expect to see capacitive transducers being sold routinely with medical ultrasound equipment, which should make the images produced become even sharper than they are today.
View the article online.
Article written by staff at news-medical.net and adapted for the purposes of this newsletter.
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