Reviews and News on Ultrasound Machines

Body surface area in medical terms is the measurement of the complete surface area of the human body. It is abbreviated as BSA. For many medical applications, body surface area is a better indicator of the amount of the mass present against the body weight. These surface areas are affected by abnormal adipose mass.

When a cardiac ultrasound procedure is conducted on a patient with aortic stenosis with out the correct calculated body surface area, it can result in misdiagnosis of the seriousness of the patient’s aortic or other cardio condition. It is just common sense that the body surface area calculation of the patient will establish what the correct size for the individual’s aortic valve must be.

At a presentation of the American Society of Echocardiography, the results of a study that was conducted showed the importance of not only considering the size of the aortic valve area when making an assessment of the seriousness of aortic stenosis. Another commonly neglected important factor that contributes to the correctness of the procedure is the body surface area calculation, that plays an integral part when making use of this type of ultrasound technology in a procedure.

This particular study unwrapped the fact that when a corrective procedure with respect to aortic stenosis are not performed with the correct body surface area calculated for the specific individual, the wrong calculated valve area will obviously result in the under diagnosis of the severity of the aortic stenosis condition and will have even more severe results.

BSA is determined by recording a patient’s height and weight with the appropriate medical equipment. There are various types of formulas used for the calculation of the approximate body surface areas. Depending upon some constant scaling factor and the ratios of the height and weight, the surface area of the body is calculated.