Abdominal Ultrasound Health Article

Preparation

A patient undergoing abdominal ultrasound will be advised by the physician about what to expect and how to prepare. As mentioned above, preparations generally include fasting.

Aftercare

In general, no aftercare related to the abdominal ultrasound procedure itself is required. Discomfort during the procedure is minimal.

Complications

Properly performed, ultrasound imaging is virtually without risk or side effects. Some patients report feeling a slight tingling and/or warmth while being scanned, but most feel nothing at all.

Results

As a diagnostic imaging technique, a normal abdominal ultrasound is one that indicates the absence of the suspected condition that prompted the scan. For example, symptoms such as abdominal pain radiating to the back suggest the possibility of, among other things, an abdominal aortic aneurysm. An ultrasound scan that indicates the absence of an aneurysm would rule out this life-threatening condition and point to other, less serious causes.

Because abdominal ultrasound imaging is generally undertaken to confirm a suspected condition, the results of a scan often will confirm the diagnosis, be it kidney stones, cirrhosis of the liver, or an aortic aneurysm. At that point, appropriate medical treatment as prescribed by a patient's physician is in order.

Health care team roles

Ultrasound scanning should be performed by a registered and trained ultrasonographer, either a technologist and/or a physician (radiologist, obstetrician/gynecologist). Ultrasound scanning in the emergency department may be performed by an emergency medicine physician, who should have appropriate training and experience in ultrasonography.

KEY TERMS

Accessory organ—A lump of tissue adjacent to an organ that is similar to it, but which serves no important purpose, if functional at all. While not necessarily harmful, such organs can cause problems if they grow too large or become cancerous.

Benign—In medical usage, benign is the opposite of malignant. It describes an abnormal growth that is stable, treatable, and generally not life-threatening.

Biopsy—The surgical removal and analysis of a tissue sample for diagnostic purposes. Usually, the term refers to the collection and analysis of tissue from a suspected tumor to establish malignancy.

Calculus—Any type of hard concretion (stone) in the body, but usually found in the gallbladder, pancreas, and kidneys. Calculi (pl.) are formed by the accumulation of excess mineral salts and other organic material such as blood or mucous. They can cause problems by lodging in and obstructing the proper flow of fluids, such as bile to the intestines or urine to the bladder.

Cirrhosis—A chronic liver disease characterized by the degeneration of proper functioning—jaundice is often an accompanying symptom. Causes of cirrhosis include alcoholism, metabolic diseases, syphilis, and congestive heart disease.

Common bile duct—The branching passage through which bile—a necessary digestive enzyme—travels from the liver and gallbladder into the small intestine. Digestive enzymes from the pancreas also enter the intestines through the common bile duct.

Computed tomography scan (CT scan)—A specialized type of x-ray imaging that uses highly focused and relatively low energy radiation to produce detailed two-dimensional images of soft tissue structures, particularly the brain. CT scans are the chief competitor to ultrasound and can yield higher quality images not disrupted by bone or gas. They are, however, more cumbersome, time consuming and expensive to perform, and they use ionizing radiation.

Doppler—The Doppler effect refers to the apparent change in frequency of sound wave echoes returning to a stationary source from a moving target. If the object is moving toward the source, the frequency increases; if the object is moving away, the frequency decreases. The size of this frequency shift can be used to compute the object's speed— be it a car on the road or blood in an artery. The Doppler effect holds true for all types of radiation, not just sound.

Frequency—Sound, whether traveling through air or the human body, produces vibrations—molecules bouncing into each other—as the shock wave travels along. The frequency of a sound is the number of vibrations per second. Within the audible range, frequency means pitch—the higher the frequency, the higher a sound's pitch.

Ionizing radiation—Radiation that can damage living tissue by disrupting and destroying individual cells at the molecular level. All types of nuclear radiation—x rays, gamma rays and beta rays—are potentially ionizing. Sound waves physically vibrate the material through which they pass, but do not ionize it.

Jaundice—A condition that results in a yellow tint to the skin, eyes and body fluids. Bile retention in the liver, gallbladder and pancreas is the immediate cause, but the underlying cause could be as simple as obstruction of the common bile duct by a gallstone or as serious as pancreatic cancer. Ultrasound can distinguish between these conditions.

Malignant—The term literally means growing worse and resisting treatment. It is used as a synonym for cancerous and connotes a harmful condition that generally is life-threatening.

Morphology—Literally, the study of form. In medicine, morphology refers to the size, shape, and structure rather than the function of a given organ. As a diagnostic imaging technique, ultrasound facilitates the recognition of abnormal morphologies as symptoms of underlying conditions.