Background Acupuncture is a relatively safe, commonly used "alternative" medical treatment for various symptoms. However, adverse effects can occur, including trauma, pneumothorax, and central-nervous-system injury. Our objective was to develop a reliable and practical procedure for ultrasound imaging of acupuncture points to improve safety during needling, and to acquire ultrasound images of s...

Ultrasound is a terrific modality for teaching. Seeing in real time is powerful, and translates the theoretical to the real. It allows immediate visualization of anatomic structures to consolidate theoretical learning about structures as varied as the thyroid, gallbladder, placenta, and aorta. Ultrasound can also illuminate key physiologic principles, and can help students understand concepts s...

The use of thoracic ultrasound outside the radiology department and in everyday clinical practice is becoming increasingly common, having been incorporated into standards of care for many specialties. For the majority of practitioners, their experience of, and exposure to, thoracic ultrasound will be in its use as an adjunct to pleural and thoracic interventions, owing to the widely recognised ...

OBJECTIVES This study was created to assess the knowledge levels of postgraduate year 4 obstetrics and gynecology residents and maternal-fetal medicine fellows in the United States regarding the safety of obstetric ultrasound and the use of the output display standard. METHODS An electronic survey was submitted to each Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education-accredited obstetrics...

BACKGROUND We introduce the first robotic ultrasound-guided prostate intervention device and evaluate its safety, accuracy and repeatability. METHODS The robotic positioning system (RPS) determines a target's x, y and z axes. It is situated with a biplane ultrasound probe on a mobile horizontal platform. The integrated software acquires ultrasound images for three-dimensional (3D) modelling, ...

Background/introduction One of the main limitations to the efficacy of chemotherapy in the brain is the blood-brain barrier (BBB). Previous pre-clinical studies have demonstrated that disruption of the BBB using pulsed ultrasound in combination with an ultrasound microbubble contrast agent can significantly increase the concentration of chemotherapy agents in the brain. Our group has developed ...

In recent years, adductor canal block (ACB) has been introduced as an alternative for femoral nerve block with a great advantage of preserving or minimally reducing quadriceps strength. The technique is relatively easy and is performed under ultrasound guidance. Despite growing evidence regarding efficacy and safety of ACB following knee surgery, use of ACB is still limited to high volume ortho...

BACKGROUND Catheter-based therapeutic ultrasound thrombolysis was recently shown to be effective and safe. The purpose of this work was to study the safety and efficacy of external high-intensity focused ultrasound thrombolysis guided by ultrasound imaging in experimental settings. METHODS AND RESULTS A therapeutic transducer was constructed from an acoustic lens and integrated with an ultras...

BACKGROUND Antenatal ultrasound suits developing countries by virtue of its versatility, relatively low cost and safety, but little is known about women's or local provider's perspectives of this upcoming technology in such settings. This study was undertaken to better understand how routine obstetric ultrasound is experienced in a displaced Burmese population and identify barriers to its accep...