You may have heard the term ultrasound and for many people, this is commonly used during pregnancy. When a mother is expecting, an ultrasound machine will be able to show the baby in the womb. But these machines have so many other applications. This kind of imaging is called sonography because it uses high-frequency sound waves to create the image that you see on the screen.
The sound waves created by the machine will be able to create an image of specific body tissue. There is a gel that is applied to the area that is scanned and a probe is placed on the skin. This is called a transducer. There are some cases where the transducer is inserted into a body opening. The transducer produces sound waves that will travel through soft tissue and body fluid hitting the denser tissues. Once they hit dense tissues, the sound waves will bounce back. The dense tissues are shown in a light grey in the scan while soft tissue is seen as darker grey. Many clinics now use a portable ultrasound machine for convenience. They don’t need a lot of space and they provide advanced and quick imaging that allows for quick diagnoses. There are many parts of the body that this can be done. Generally, ultrasound imagery provides valuable information regarding conditions that affect obstetrics, abdominal tissues, circulation, urology etc.
You will be able to see imagery of certain body parts such as the bladder, thyroid, gall bladder, reproductive organs, heart, spleen etc. with an ultrasound machine. Health care professionals will be able to find out health conditions that are related to your organs or tissues with an ultrasound machine. They can show certain cardiovascular issues such as blood vessels that have narrowed due to a blockage. You can identify a tumour or cyst with this machine as well. There are also certain infections that can be diagnosed because the machine allows the doctors to see the blood flow of a patient. Generally, for an infected site, there will be an increased blood flow. Thyroid conditions and uterine fibroids can be diagnosed with an ultrasound machine as well. However, they are not able to find ulcers and this is something that can be diagnosed with an endoscopy or X-ray.
If you are wondering about the risks regarding ultrasound technology, you are looking at very minimal risks. There is a possibility that this technology can cause tissues to heat or contribute to tiny pockets of gas within tissues. However, it is not recommended to get an ultrasound for non-medical uses because we are not sure about the long term impact of this use. An ultrasound will be able to find liver cancer or fatty liver disease. The images you get from this machine are not as detailed as the ones you get from an MRI or CT scan. But they can find out certain things that an X-ray can’t. An ultrasound is a non-invasive procedure and there is no risk of radiation to the patient.