Dear Ultrasound Insider,
Sometimes important things may be sacrificed in the quest for time savings. In ultrasound, a focus on short exam times can make it impossible to incorporate new techniques, such as high-frequency imaging of the placenta, for example, according to ultrasound luminary Dr. Jason Birnholz.
Dr. Birnholz discusses the potential costs of an overemphasis on exam times in part 17 of his Practice of Ultrasound series, which is this issue's Insider Exclusive, available to you before our regular members can access it.
While CT may be more sensitive for evaluating suspected nephrolithiasis, ultrasound should still be used first, according to a large multicenter trial. A group led by Dr. Rebecca Smith-Bindman of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) found that using CT first did not yield better clinical outcomes. Learn more by clicking here.
In other feature articles in your Ultrasound Digital Community, transcranial Doppler ultrasound was recently determined to be cost-effective for deciding the best way to treat asymptomatic carotid artery stenosis. Find out more by clicking here.
New criteria from the Society of Radiologists in Ultrasound for determining early in the first trimester if a pregnancy is viable will not lead to a huge burden of follow-up ultrasound exams, according to researchers from UCSF. Get the details here.
Ultrasound elastography with intrinsic compression may be able to sharply reduce the number of unnecessary thyroid biopsies. Also, both strain elastography and shear-wave elastography combine well with B-mode ultrasound for characterizing breast lesions, South Korean researchers reported.
Echocardiographer Doug Wuebben and strength coach Mark Roozen have also contributed a new article in their Making a Difference as a Sonographer series. In their latest column, they share a moving story that highlights the debilitating pain sonographers can experience from job-related injuries.
Do you have an idea or topic you'd like to see covered? As always, please feel free to drop me a line.
