Ultrasound Knowledge

In assessing the effectiveness of ultrasound machine in pregnancy, it’s essential to form the distinction between its selective use for specific indications and its routine use as a screening procedure. Essentially, ultrasound has proven valuable in a few specific situations in which the diagnosis “remains unsure after clinical history has been ascertained and a physical examination has been performed.” Yet, considering whether the benefits outweigh the prices of using ultrasound routinely, systematic medical analysis has not supported routine use.

There is another drawback in screening for IUGR. One in every of the fundamental principles of ultrasound machines screening is to screen only for conditions for that you’ll be ready to do something. At gift, there’s no treatment for IUGR, no way to slow up or stop the method of too-slow growth of the fetus and come it to normal. Therefore it is arduous to work out how screening for IUGR may be expected to enhance pregnancy outcome.

Once again it’s fascinating to seem at what happened with the difficulty of safety of X-rays throughout pregnancy. X-rays were used on pregnant girls for pretty much fifty years and assumed to be safe. In 1937, a commonplace textbook on antenatal care stated: “It’s been frequently asked whether there is any danger to the life of the child by the passage of X- rays through it; it can be said directly there is none if the examination is allotted by a competent radiologist or radiographer.” A later edition of the identical textbook stated: “It is now known that the unrestricted use of X-rays through the fetus caused childhood cancer.” This story illustrates the danger of assuming safety.

With regard to the active scientific pursuit of safety, a commentary in Lancet, a British medical journal, says: “There are no randomized controlled trials of adequate size to assess whether or not there are adverse effects on growth and development of children exposed in utero to ultrasound. Indeed, the necessary studies to determine safety might never be done, as a result of of lack of interest in such research.”

The safety issue is created more complicated by the problem of exposure conditions. Clearly, any bio-effects which may occur as a result of ultrasound would rely on the dose of ultrasound received by the fetus or woman. However there are not any national or international standards for the output characteristics of ultrasound equipment. The result is the shocking state of affairs described in a commentary in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, in which ultrasound machines in use on pregnant ladies vary in output power from extremely high to extremely low, all with equal effect.