ULTRASOUND IMAGING AND PREVENTIVE CONTROL

1) What is Ultrasound Imaging and why it is so important?

Ultrasound Imaging, or in simple terms Ultrasound, is the examination performed on our body organs for the purpose of their simple morphological study until the precise assessment of their movements and their blood flow using the sound waves which turn into a picture.

Τhe ability of ultrasonography to discover easily and reliably minor abnormalities and substantiate their benignity or malignancy makes it extremely important in the field of preventive medicine

2) Does this examination emit radiation?

Ultrasound control has no irradiation; therefore it is completely safe to test pregnant women and babies, which means that we start the preventive control from a foetal age.

3) What is a Triplex?

The examination using the ultrasound on the vessels and the heart is called triplex, because vascular and heart structures and the blood flow are monitored in a simultaneous morphological, kinetic and haemodynamic study.

4) Which organs can the Ultrasound check?

The brain, heart, body vessels (arteries, veins), lymph nodes, thyroid gland, parotid gland, oral glands, joints, muscles, breasts, liver, gall bladder, pancreas , spleen, kidneys, adrenal glands, bladder, uterus, ovaries and fallopian tubes, prostate gland, seminal vesicles, testis. Lately, some medical centres started check-ups in the large intestine.

5) Which examinations/tests you suggest should be done in accordance to gender and age?

Always in consultation with the clinician, who is informed of the patient’s medical history, we could choose the proper tests and examinations according to gender and age.

So, starting with the infants, hip ultrasound has now become established as a routine check for blocking hip dislocation, such an important condition that if diagnosed early, it contributes to the normal life of the individual. A brain ultrasound check- up in babies can also be given – especially in premature babies – and abdominal and testicular for possible cryptorchidia.

Children that start primary school should have a heart triplex and an abdominal and thyroid ultrasound.

From the 15th year of age, male children should have a Triplex Ultrasound of the scrotum, which will be repeated every two years, since at the age of 15-35 we have the highest incidents of malignancies in the testes, a finding that if diagnosed early, the patient has a very good prognosis.

For female children of that age, it would be suggested to have the internal genitalia and uterus examined with an Ultrasound.

Women from the age of 20 years and onwards, the control of the thyroid, breast, abdomen and internal genitalia and ovaries should be done annually, while in men of the same age, breast ultrasound is replaced by the scrotum triplex (testes).

Of course at these ages this check-up concludes the prenatal check-up many couples have in their preventative routine.

Subsequently, at the age of 40, women should be concluding the breast ultrasound with a mammogram, and men, prostate ultrasound should be supplemented with PSA (blood test for the prostate). In recent years, by conducting prostate biopsies when the PSA rate is over 4, we have seen an increase in malignancy at ages younger than 50. We should not forget the transvaginal ultrasound for the check of ovarian and uterine malignancy – especially in menopause, as well as Triplex of heart and vessels (carotid and limb and abdominal aorta) in both men and women according to their medical history (hypercholesterolemia, arterial hypertension, vascular events)

And the most important thing to remember is that regardless of age and sex, we visit our doctor because Prevention Saves lives.

Leave a reply