Wendy Despain

Nerve blocks used for regional anesthesia in knee surgery can be made safer using ultrasound guidance for needle placement, lowering the necessary dose, according to a recent Italian study.

Researchers have found a way to use ultrasound as a diagnostic tool for gout. The noninvasive modality could serve as a potential supplement to blood, urine, and joint fluid tests, which don't always provide a definitive diagnosis.

Patients with major depressive disorder can show actual physical changes to the brain structure on sonographic evaluation, according to German researchers. One study found that depressed patients with a history of responding to serotonin reuptake inhibitors also had a high incidence of reduced echogenicity of the brain stem raphe. Another found that many patients diagnosed with depression also showed increased echogenicity in a specific area of the midbrain common in patients with Parkinson’s disease.

A technique previously shown to diagnose cardiogenic pulmonary edema has now been used to successfully diagnose pulmonary edema brought on by high altitude. Pulmonary edema is the primary cause of death from altitude sickness, and ultrasound could be an effective, low-cost test suitable for field hospitals.

A method of automatically combining CT, PET, and ultrasound scans into one image may help clinicians diagnose gynecological cancers. Together, the three modalities provide a clearer picture of indeterminate solid masses in the pelvic area.

Ultrasound strain imaging, or elastography, can show the difference between a benign breast mass and a tumor, avoiding biopsy. Although accuracy depends on the skill of the reader, strain imaging can be used to better determine which masses should be biopsied.

The double lung point is an ultrasound sign that may help diagnose transient tachypnea of the newborn, a respiratory disorder currently diagnosed mainly by excluding other disorders. A recent study identified the double lung point in newborns already diagnosed with transient tachypnea.

Diagnosis of pneumoperitoneum with ultrasound could be more consistent and reliable if operators look for the enhanced peritoneal stripe sign. A recent study from an emergency room setting in India showed that this method, which proved reliable in animal models, was also an accurate sign of air in the peritoneal cavity in humans.

Ultrasound is more accurate than conventional screening for detecting goiter in patients on long-term lithium therapy, according to a recent study from Germany. Lithium therapy inhibits normal function of the thyroid, but clinical inspection and palpation missed goiter in some patients in whom it was detected with ultrasound.

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.

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.

Embryo transfer will more likely result in pregnancy if catheter placement is guided by ultrasound rather than clinical touch, according to a study analyzing research through August 2006.

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.

Hypotensive patients with blunt abdominal trauma could skip the CT in the emergency department and go directly to exploratory laparotomy when they have positive focused abdominal sonography for trauma (FAST) findings, according to researchers from the University of California, Davis.

Contrast-enhanced ultrasound offers a viable alternative to CT imaging for evaluating and monitoring renal cell carcinoma, according to three papers presented at the 2006 RSNA meeting.

Contrast-enhanced lymphosonography finds more sentinel lymph nodes than can established nuclear medicine techniques, according to preliminary animal studies focusing on melanoma.

Most radiologists surveyed by the Society for Radiologists in Ultrasound said they perform more than 10 thyroid aspirations each week. However, few of them used consistent criteria to determine which nodules were chosen for aspiration, according to data released at the RSNA meeting.

Most radiologists surveyed by the Society for Radiologists in Ultrasound said they perform more than 10 thyroid aspirations each week. But few used consistent criteria to determine which nodules were chosen for aspiration. Institutions performing more thyroid aspirations seem to find more malignant nodules, but the survey didn’t determine if this was a result of better methodology or simply a matter of patient selection.

Contrast-enhanced ultrasound may offer more sensitive and more detailed detection of endoleaks for aortic stent-grafts than CT angiography, according to research presented at the 2006 RSNA meeting. The two techniques might best be used in combination, said researchers from the University of Insubria in Varese, Italy.