{mosimage} Ultrasound contributes to faster, better, safer and in-time diagnostics, i.e. to efficient therapy and faster healing procedure.
Ultrasound is used in diagnostics of:
1. Abdominal area, including: liver, gal bladder, kidneys, spleen, pancreas, cradle, uterus, ovaries, aorta and periaorta space, prostate gland, adrenal gland. Apart from detecting illness of these organs, other injuries and free fluids in abdominal area can be detected. For examination procedure, a patient should not eat six to eight hours before examination and two hours before examination, patient should drink three to four glasses of water in order to have the cradle full during the examination. In urgent cases, examination is performed without previous preparation.
2. Breasts. Recommended to all women and girls after the age of 20, once a year and after 30, regular control check twice a year. This examination enables early detecting pathological conditions and directs patients to further examinations, so consequently makes treatment easier and better. Examination includes breasts and areas above and under shoulder and clavicles and armpit, as these are the areas to detect enlarged lymph glands. Optimal timing for examination is 10-14 days from beginning of menstrual period.
3. Thyroid gland. Detecting pathology in size, substance and circulation in gland. If changes are detected, patients are directed to the endocrinologist. Parathyroid glands cannot be seen in this examination.
4. Soft tissues, muscles and tendons. Detecting of ruptures (breaks) of muscles and tendons, bleeding, inflammations, tumourous processes and cists.
5. Joints. Diagnostics in cases of inflammations, bleeding, hematomas, meniscus damages and tumourous processes. In children, examinations detect developing disorders of hip joint – displasia or inborn distortions in first 12 months of growth. Recommendations of the World Health Organization of pediatrics includes every 3 months ultrasound examinations of hips in order to prevent development of a disorder.
6. Soft tissues of a neck, under jaw saliva gland and parotid saliva gland, as well as neck lymph glands. Examination enables detecting disorders, cists and tumors.
7. Testicles. Examination provides detecting cists, tumors and other disorders.
Ultrasound has a special place in gynecology for detecting tumorous disorders, cists and inflammations in obstetrics where ultrasound examination follow up controls pregnancy process and detects developing changes of fetus in uterus.
In cardiology ultrasound is used for examination of heart, measuring the size of heart areas and detecting heart disorders and other diseases.
Doppler included new dimension in ultrasound diagnostics of blood vessels and enabled insight into the state of organ circulation, as well as non-invasive analyses of circulation within veins and arteries in all parts of a body. Its applying detects existence of ateroma plaques and the percentage of blood vessel narrowing. It is also possible to measure the speed of blood circulation through arteries and to detect if the flow of blood into particular organs or tissues is sufficient. It is possible to detect other disorders of blood vessels, as aneurism, thrombiflebitis (inflammations of blood clot in surface veins) and inflammations of deep veins.
Doppler is used also for examinations of kidney arteries and offers data on blood circulation in kidneys, so enables non-invasive estimation of stenosis in children and adults, thrombosis and kidney tumors. It is used for prostate disorders, scrotum and chemodialisis conditions, as well as for estimations for kidney transplants.
Doppler is used also for circulation of thyroid gland, breasts, lymph glands, inflammation changes in muscles and bones tissues and for detecting difference between benign and malign tumors. The use of Doppler in examinations of liver and portal circulation is aiming diagnostics of portal vein thrombosis, estimation of circulation in portal hypertension and estimation of abnormal flow in heart infarction.
Modern ultrasound devices and good training skills of physicians in our health centre enables ultrasound examinations of all organs and tissues, including the use of a Doppler. We recommend systematic health checks even in cases when there are no obvious signs of illness, as in that way it is possible to detect early, invisible signs of a disorders or illness, which is much safer than in case of late illness detecting.
LIGHT WAVES
Christian Doppler (1803-1853), Austrian physics, described the change of twin stars colors and concluded the cause of the color change was the change of light waves frequency depending on the waves movement direction compared to the spectator.
Later it was discovered that the same principle is applied to ultrasound. Only in 1956, Satomura noticed that erythrocytes can reflect ultrasound and that is how this principle is used in medicine named after and in honor of Christian Doppler.
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Dr Vladislava Šaranović Vujnović,
Radiology specialist
