Ultrasonography is a diagnostic method using ultra high frequency soundwaves (between 2 and 11 million oscillations per second!), and is widely applied in medicine. The images of the body’s internal organs produced by this method is what we call an ultrasound scan.
Ultrasound images are used throughout pregnancy, as well as for depicting solid internal structures of the body. Ultrasound can be used to scan:
The upper abdomen: the liver, the gall bladder, the pancreas and spleen, the adrenal glands
The lower abdomen: the bladder, the uterus and ovaries, and the prostate.
Ultrasound can also be used to scan more superficila organs, such as the thyroid, the breast, and other soft tissues, such as glands, muscles, and tendons.
Equally important is the diagnostic contribution of ultrasound to pediatrics, particularly in babies and newborns. A key application of ultrasound in this area is in the monitoring of the hips in newborns.
Triplex (color Doppler) aids with the monitoring of blood vessels and organ vasculature. This broadened the applications of ultrasound to include the heart, the carotid arteries, the abdominal aorta, and peripheral vessels. The use of color Triplex and power Doppler made the monitoring of umbilical blood flow during pregnancy much easier. Scans of this type can sometimes save a pregnancy, as they can reveal whether the umbilical cord is wrapped around the baby’s neck, or whether there are hemodynamic abnormalities in the umbilical cord while the embryo is growing. An important development in contemporary ultrasonography is real-time 3D imaging(4D). This means that 3D images can be monitored in real time – thereby adding the time dimension to the three dimensions of length, depth, and height.
