Over the past decade, pregnant women have been bombarded with advertising from “boutique ultrasound” services that promise to provide a “keepsake” ultrasound video of their baby. These commercial businesses, more like photography studios than medical facilities, go far beyond the standard, doctor-administered ultrasound previously offered during pregnancy. In fact, many women have started posting their baby’s ultrasound photos on Facebook and other social networking sites. Today’s photo-realistic images show much more detail than the standard ultrasound image of the past. Ultrasound videos can even facial features, movements and thumb-sucking.

This budding, yet controversial, business sector provides expectant families with photos, videos, and digital images of fetal ultrasounds. High-tech boutique-style ultrasound centers have been gaining popularity across the country, but it is beginning to cause alarm within the medical community. Many obstetricians believe these frequent, non-medical ultrasounds could be potentially harmful to both the mother and fetus.

Connecticut legislators are close to banning ultrasounds for pregnant women unless they are pre-approved for medical or diagnostic reasons. This action is in response to the growing number of “keepsake” ultrasound businesses in the state. While there are no conclusive studies to prove long-term injuries caused by excessive ultrasounds, the bill’s supporters contend that using ultrasounds as a form of “entertainment” is inappropriate and dangerous.

The FDA has also expressed concern about this growing practice, calling it an “unapproved use of medical devices”.

Part of the reason for the growth in commercial ultrasound business is recent improvements in the technology over the past 5-7 years, which have improved the photo quality of the images, but like any other medical procedure, it comes with a certain amount of risk. Most physicians agree; conducting medical procedures outside of a medical setting is never a good idea.

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An Endoscope is a long thin tube with a miniature camera lens fixed on the tip of the tube, and a light source at the other. It is inserted in the body cavity of a person in order to view the inside of the intestines, oesophagus etc, and a magnified image of the relevant area is transmitted to a viewing monitor. The Endoscopy equipment consists of a control head and a flexible long tube containing several other tubes transmitting light, air, water or even suction.

Endoscopes pertaining to the specific parts of the body are developed in order to customize the procedures with regards to ailments relating to the abdominal cavity, lungs, bladder, uterus, nasal, rectum etc. For example, a gastro scope is used to view the insides of the stomach intestines; a laparoscope is used to look in anything from the gall bladder to the women’s reproductive organs etc.

Initially endoscopic instruments were only used to take images of the organs and intestines, today, live color video can be viewed and all aspects of the affected area can be diagnosed first hand with the use of fiber optic instruments encasing thousands of mirrors and lens in a very tiny, flexible and compact tube.

With the advancement of modern technology and the development of the endoscopic equipments, these are also used to take a biopsy, suck formation of pus, and also perform surgeries such as hernia, fallopian tubal ligation, laser surgeries etc.

The patient is usually given anesthesia for sedation and also given pain killing medications to avoid soreness or discomfort. The procedure is hardly invasive, although in some cases it requires tiny incisions depending on the requirement. After the procedure the patient is kept in observation for few hours till the effect of the anesthesia wears off and is further checked for any discomforting effects or reactions.

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Power Doppler Imaging can be abbreviated as PDI, is an imaging technique based on the ultrasound technology. PDI is based on the Doppler Effect for measuring different parameters of the body. Doppler Effect correlates the velocity of the observer and the source in a medium, thus it is a procedure to find out the relative effect of the motion of the observer, source and medium. Power Doppler Imaging is a technique based on the Doppler Effect to find out the relative velocity of the blood which moves towards and away from the measuring probe.

With PDI the frequency shift of a particular blood flow on a heart valve is calculated. The speed and direction of the flow is also determined though this technique. The Power Doppler Imaging is typically used for cardiovascular studies which involves sonographic study of heart and vasculature system. These cardiovascular studies are essential in numerous areas such as determining reverse direction blood flow in the liver portions.

The Power Doppler Imaging is the non directional Doppler. The Doppler shift produced by these imaging methods come in the audible range and is represented audibly by stereo speakers. These speakers produce a distinct synthetic, pulsating sound.

Power Doppler Imaging when compared with conventional imaging methods such as color flow Doppler proves its utility in manifolds. Power Doppler Imaging methods usually visualize the morphological effects minutely by leaving the artifacts like echoshadowing and aliasing. In some of the cases of distal occlusion color flow Doppler has failed to depict the proper blood flow details, but power Doppler imaging gave the pertinent readings.

Power Doppler Imaging is a useful sonographic technique to determine the problems related to blood flow and can examine nicely some of the hypoplastic and stenosed arteries. The current inventions are making it more useful for the ultrasonic applications.

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