Ultrasound imaging, or sonography, has been cited as the most important advance for NJ vein experts in medicine during the last half of the 20th century. Its use by physicians to “see inside the body” without having to break the skin or invade a body cavity has ushered in an age of minimally-invasive interventional radiology (IR) treatment techniques that have revolutionized surgery.
Before the invention of ultrasound, many diseases had to be treated with invasive surgery, which meant that the surgeons had to make deep incisions that required general anesthesia and resulted in post-surgical pain, scarring, and long recovery periods. Newer ultrasound-guided IR procedures have eliminated the need for all of that, and have made possible treatments that are so pain- and trauma-free they can be performed in your doctor’s offices.
What exactly IS ultrasound?
Technically, ultrasound refers to sound waves that have a frequency higher than the limit of human hearing. In practice, these high-frequency sound waves are generated by an ultrasound wand or transducer and then pass harmlessly through skin, muscle tissue, blood vessels, bone, and organs. As they do, they bounce off of these objects and return to a computer, which creates a kind of two-dimensional “sonic map” of the area being scanned. The result is similar to an X-ray, but without the dangers associated with exposure to radiation.
Standard ultrasound, Doppler ultrasound, and Duplex ultrasound
Standard ultrasound creates a 2D, gray-scale image that is useful for viewing the internal structures of an area of the body. This type of ultrasound is often used in the diagnosis of vein diseases, because it clearly shows the structure of your veins (to detect any abnormalities), and can show any blockages in them (such as blood clots). Standard ultrasound is also used by varicose vein removal experts in NJ to precisely guide tiny needles or catheters into place to close diseased blood vessels.
The limitation of standard ultrasound in the treatment of vein disease is that these 2D, gray-scale images can’t really display blood as it flows through your veins. To see that, NJ vein experts use Doppler ultrasound, which adds color to the images to display motion, so that doctors can determine whether blood is flowing as it should, or whether it is displaying reflux motion and flowing “backward,” pooling in your veins instead of returning to the heart. This reflux blood flow is a symptom of chronic venous insufficiency (CVI), the most common cause of varicose veins.
Doppler ultrasound is sometimes combined with standard ultrasound to create Duplex ultrasound sonograms, which display both types of images at once. Duplex ultrasound is often used to diagnose serious all types of vein disease.
Ultrasound is just one of the technologies we use at Chuback Medical Group
Our vein treatment center in New Jersey uses state-of-the-art technology that allows us to provide the best vein disease treatments possible to our patients. If you want to learn more about the advanced equipment we use to diagnose and treat vein disease, spend some time looking over the informative articles on our website at http://chubackmedical.com/veins/ or give us a call at 201-693-4847.
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