Reviews and News on Ultrasound Machines

Known as one of the safest types of diagnostic tests, ultrasound is a non-invasive method of viewing specific areas of the body. While not known to produce any harm to humans when used properly, diagnostic ultrasound should only be used by fully trained medical practitioners.

A recent trend toward “boutique” 3-D ultrasound pictures has caused some concern within the medical community because they are used on pregnant women by non-medical staffers. Whenever any type of diagnostic equipment is used outside of a medical environment, it is never considered a safe practice, but when the service is promoted to pregnant women, it is even more disturbing. Ultrasound machines may be relatively safe, but they can still have a mechanical or thermal effect on tissue, especially when a machine uses increased output.

In ultrasound scanning, “output” is the amount of energy used to obtain the desired image. With the recent introduction of 3-D Doppler imaging technologies, these machines have not been in use long enough to gage the effects of repeated use. Pulsed images that utilize “spectral Doppler” and color-flow imaging make more use of B-mode imaging. This has led some physicians to believe that ultrasound machines should not be used on pregnant women more often than medically necessary.

Regulations on these machines have not changed the ways in which they can be used in a medical setting, but they have placed the onus of responsibility on the operator of the machine, rather than the manufacturer, to ensure that a diagnostic test is done safely. This means the operator must be familiar with the scanner’s settings and understand the potential mechanical or thermal effects on human beings.

Most trained portable ultrasound technicians are taught to use the lowest output power and shortest scanning time necessary to gather the required data. There may be some situations where it is rational to use higher output, but this type of sensitivity will only come when a practitioner has been thoroughly trained on the equipment.

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Corometrics has a proven track record in the manufacture of fetal monitors that are compact and light weight and aid in the measurement of heart functions and uterine activity. The quality is unmatched as is to be expected from any GE machinery. The wide beam 9 crystal Nautilus watertight ultrasound transducers that these machines incorporate acquire accurate signals in the measurement of fetal heart rate. These sleek machines are also user friendly and come with an intuitive user interface. The display lists the main parameters which make for easy reading and also allows for printing the results on graphs.

All GE Corometrics 170 Series 174 Fetal Monitor System have dual ultrasound internal and external monitoring. They are the ideal non intrusive monitoring systems that are available in the market today and are moderately priced with assured quality and reliability. These machines are compact and light weight making them easy to be moved around. They can be ideal for home or for use as they are highly affordable.

The main features of the machine include, high and low threshold alarms that indicate possible abnormal activity on the parameters that have been provided. The monitors also provide differentiation in the heart rates of twin babies and clearly separate the two. The machine also ensures the heart beat coincidence of the fetus twice so that there is no confusion between the two beats. There are independent volume controllers for both fetuses in twin baby monitoring situations.

The Fetal Movement detection options allows for the monitoring of the fetal movements and automatic recording of the same on chart paper. The LED lights and single touch buttons makes it convenient to use. The optional Fetal Acoustic Stimulator uses low frequency stimuli to wake the fetus which increases the reliability of the anti partum tests and retest consistency. There are musical indicators for most parametric monitoring done on the machine.

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Color Flow Mode (CFM) is also called as Color Flow Doppler Imaging (CFD). These are the ultrasonic imaging techniques used for measuring the blood flow through the heart. They display the flow data on the 2-D echocardiography image. The technique is mainly used for determining the congenital, valvular and other forms of disease related to heart.

The color flow mode imaging is based on the Doppler Effect of the acoustics. The Doppler Effect helps to find out the blood flow from different parts of the body. It helps to identify the direction of the flow of blood. Color flow mode imaging is understandable to the common user. They avoid the displays of the complex spectral velocity structures.

In the color flow imaging different colors defines the direction of the given jet. The red color and blue colors are taken for defining the direction. The change in the hues from bright to dull depicts the change in the velocities. When there is turbulence in the blood flow a mosaic of colors is formed. Therefore a 2-D display of the blood flow is depicted by the identification of size, velocity and direction.

Red color is used to depict the flow towards the transducer and the blue color is used to depict the flow away from the transducer. Different color references can always be seen in different Doppler Imaging devices. Generally in color flow mode the color bar of black color represents zero flow.

Color flow mode is a very easy and understandable way to study the ultrasonic waves to calculate the blood flow. By making different colors as the codes to measure the flow of blood people can get easily the meaning of the reports generated. These techniques work in the normal hearing range of the humans thus are not harmful for humans.

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Mammography machines help analyze breast tissue for possible incidence of cancer and are the choicest tools for guiding breast biopsy procedures. It works by directing a low frequency X-ray through the breast tissue and rendering detailed images for the physician to analyze. The high clarity and definition of these images helps perceive even delicate tissues within the breast. The GE Senographe DMR Mammography Machine is a highly advanced state of the art piece of medical equipment from GE that delivers high performance at affordable costs. GE has been a pioneer in mammography machine manufacturing and over the years has set high industry standards which are rarely matched by competitors.

The machine is very user friendly and has 5 photocells for expansive imaging functionalities in breast placement and digital angulations display. It also provides hands free compression and offers more interaction with the patient by way of vertical height adjustment. The quality of images rendered by a mammography machine is of utmost importance. The high image quality increases the diagnostic capabilities of physicians and the GE Senographe DMR is ahead of the competition in that it delivers high quality images with superb clarity by using dedicated MaxiRay X-ray tube and SharpIQ grid. The MaxiRay bi-metal rhodium or molybdenum tube offers extensive penetration and comes with an inner focusing cone. The high X-ray spectrum provided by these metals penetrates even the densest of breast tissues and reveals details that are obscure in images rendered by other machines.

The unrivalled image quality and magnification provided by this tube sets the machine apart from its competitors. The machine reduces exposure time, which ensures image quality and cuts down dose by 40 percent which allows for examination of dense breasts without reduction in image quality. The anti scatter grid movement is also optimized by the SharpIQ and DMR features which provides high definition images. The machine as with most GE products is consistent and reliable and also ensures automatic optimization of parameters. The digital display, flipping markers and single magnification stand all add to overall design and renders it highly user friendly.

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Obstetrics is the special deal of care given to a lady and her child during her period of pregnancy, puerperium and child birth. In the obstetric exercise, the obstetric practitioners look after the pregnant woman on a regular basis to check the growth of the offspring. These obstetrics ensures that there is no ex-novo disease and no other preexisting diseases in the body of the pregnant woman which may possibly affect the baby in future.

Some of the risks which should be seen by an obstetric practitioner are pre-eclampsia, abnormal fetal presentation, abnormal placentation and intrauterine growth restriction. All such risk identification requires some special analysis of the woman on the regular basis. For example to check for pre-eclampsia, albuminuria i.e. the level of urine protein and blood pressure are checked at regular intervals.

In late pregnancies some of the fetal presentations get established like cephalic presentation which involves head first but the baby can be present buttocks first or feet first, transverse or at an oblique presentation. Some of the intrauterine growth restrictions observed by the obstetric practitioners is a general designation in which the offspring is smaller than the expected size, in this case such serious growth symptoms shows a behavior to drop off from the 50 percentile and coming above 10 percentile.

All the calculations are obtained when plotted on a fetal growth chart. Different causes can be extrinsic, relating to the problems apart from the fetus and different causes can be intrinsic, which means relating to the problems of the fetus. An obstetrician needs to check for all types of symptoms to save a child from any of the problems which may arise in future and for the pregnant lady to ensure the successful delivery. Thus for a complete growth of the child obstetrician has a big role to play.

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Fetal monitors are used at hospital and medical facilities to monitor fetuses and are also available for domestic or home use. There is a bunch of such products available in the market and one needs to have a good understanding of the common features and specifications commonly available on different models in order to separate the good ones from the bad and to choose the right one, which offers extra features.

The Corometrics 145 fetal monitor from GE was exclusively designed for hospital use and is quite expensive for domestic or home use. It uses ultrasound technology such as continuous external wave Doppler with autocorrelation processing and ultrasonic signals to accurately analyze the health of the fetus based on measured parameters such as heart rate and contractions of the heart as well as uterine activity of a developing baby. The data gathered through such external interference rather than using probes or intrusive devices, can be either printed out or displayed on a digital screen for analysis.

The reason why most fetal monitors are not prescribed for home use is because they are cumbersome to use and requires an understanding of the readings that they generate. They are also quite expensive to procure and are hence most suited to hospitals and clinics.

The operations on the Corometrics 145 ultrasound machine are all exclusively performed using buttons that are easy to use and user friendly. It is often more economical to buy this device online from a medical equipment supplier than to go for a retail purchase. It comes with TOCO and US transduction and provides highly accurate readings and ultrasound FHR tracings.

The printing resolution provided by thermal linear array makes the readings easy to analyze and record. They also offer consistent uterine activity recordings and everything is done using push buttons, which makes the whole process rather simple, and user friendly.

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Real-time data on a pregnant mother and her unborn child during the course of labor was a pressing need in obstetrical science. Ultrasound came to the rescue with the development of external fetal monitors. The all-encompassing term for this type of monitoring is cardiotocography, or CTG. This refers to the fact that not one, but two pieces of data are being collected. In simple terms, the CTG is recording the fetal heartbeat and the rate of uterine contractions. These factors, when taken together, are a good indicator of how the fetus is handling the stress of labor.

There are two ultrasound transducers used in fetal monitoring, one for the fetal heart rate and the other for the contractions themselves. External monitoring is accomplished by strapping the transducing sensors to the abdomen of the pregnant mother. The heart sensor is based on Doppler methodology. The contraction transducer is a pressure sensor and measures the tension of the abdominal wall which is an indirect indicator of intrauterine pressure.

CTG must consider several factors, namely uterine contractions and all four features of fetal heart rate:

*the baseline heart rate,
*variability or changes over time,
*accelerations over time, and
*decelerations over time.

Before interpretation can begin, risk factors must be defined. They will influence the decision-making process. For example, the decision to proceed to a surgical intervention or cesarean section might be made more quickly if the patient is at higher risk for an adverse outcome.

Historically, this suite of data has been classified as “reassuring” or “non-reassuring.” Deemed not descriptive enough, these two classifications have been supplanted by these new categories.

*Category I (normal) – the tracing of all findings are indicative of normal status and labor can be allowed to proceed using standard procedures.
*Category II (indeterminate) – the tracing of all findings are not indicative of normal status but do not rise to the level that requires immediate intervention. Continued monitoring is indicated and more re-evaluations are necessary.
*Category III (abnormal) – some part of the findings indicate an abnormal status such as fetal distress that requires prompt evaluation and management, inducing but not limited to direct intervention such as a cesarean section.

Ultrasound Machine Tags: Fetal Monitors, Medical Equipment, Ultrasound Transducers