Ultrasound in Biological News

Anti-tumor therapy with endoscopic ultrasound may fight cancer more safely and effectively

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, September 12, 2008 - The chairman of EUS2008 today announced that investigational research on a therapeutic technique that will allow physicians to directly inject malignant tumors with cancer fighting agents from inside the body will be presented at the 16th International Sympo...

New 3-D ultrasound could improve stroke diagnosis, care

DURHAM, N.C. Using 3-D ultrasound technology they designed, Duke University bioengineers can compensate for the thickness and unevenness of the skull to see in real-time the arteries within the brain that most often clog up and cause strokes. The researchers believe that these advances will ul...

3-D ultrasound scanner provides in-depth view of the brain

Biomedical engineers at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering have adapted a three-dimensional ultrasound scanner that might guide minimally invasive brain surgeries and provide better detection of a brain tumor’s location. The “brain scope,” which is inserted into a dime-sized hole in the skull, ...

Focused ultrasound relieves fibroid symptoms in women

A noninvasive ultrasound procedure effectively shrinks uterine fibroids and significantly relieves fibroid-related symptoms in women, according to the results of a multicenter clinical trial reported in the June issue of the journal Radiology. Magnetic resonance-guided, focused ultrasound surgery ...

3-D ultrasound identifies women at risk for impending preterm birth

To help physicians non-invasively identify women at risk for preterm birth, 3-D ultrasound was used to measure the size of fetal adrenal glands, according to an abstract presented by Yale School of Medicine researchers at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine Conference February 8 in San Francisc...

3-D ultrasound scanner could guide robotic surgeries

Duke University engineers have shown that a three-dimensional ultrasound scanner they developed can successfully guide a surgical robot. The scanner could find application in various medical settings, according to the researchers. They said the scanner ultimately might enable surgeries to be perf...

3D ultrasound device poised to advance minimally invasive surgery

Three-dimensional ultrasound probes built by researchers at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering have imaged the beating hearts of dogs. The engineers said their demonstration showed that the probes could give surgeons a better view during human endoscopic surgeries in which operations are performed ...

Penn researchers study the use of ultrasound for treatment of cancer

For the first time, ultrasound is being used in animal models ?to treat cancer by disrupting tumor blood vessels. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine completed a study in mice in which they used ultrasound both to see a tumor's blood perfusion and then to treat it with ...

Pulsating ultrasound enhances gene therapy for tumors

High-intensity focused ultrasound emitted in short pulses is a promising, non-invasive procedure for enhancing gene delivery to cancerous cells without destroying healthy tissue, according to a study in the May issue of the journal Radiology. High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) is more power...

DOE-funded research projects win 46 R&D 100 Awards for 2009

...nt the locale of cancer tissue in the prostate gland in detail at an early stage. Diagnosis is easier using the gamma camera, rather than conventional ultrasound imaging, because the camera can more easily detect the small cancerous tissues and distinguish between benign and cancerous tumors. The new technology...

The sound of light: Innovative technology shatters the barriers of modern light microscopy

...reates small shock waves. In effect, the short laser pulse gives rise to an ultrasound wave that the researchers pick up with an ultrasound microphone. The real power of the technique, however, lies in specially ...

Engineering innovative solutions for 21st century medicine

...rk Walport, Director of the Wellcome Trust, said: "Research in medical engineering has been responsible for major advances in healthcare, ranging from ultrasound scanning in pregnancy to hip and knee replacements. The opportunities for engineers and medical scientists to collaborate are endless but all too ofte...

Autonomous robot detects shrapnel

...entary tabletop robot whose "eyes" are a novel 3-D ultrasound technology developed at Duke. An artificial intell... of Stephen Smith, director of the Duke University ultrasound Transducer Group and senior member of the research...ign, metallic objects from the eye. Advances in ultrasound technology have made these latest experiments poss...

Potential for non-invasive brain tumor treatment

...diation. The bioengineers designed and built an ultrasound catheter that can fit into large blood vessels of ...rnal Ultrasonic Imaging . "The catheter would use ultrasound to first image the tumor, and then direct a higher... the ultimate creation of a practical intracranial ultrasound catheter is possible," said Stephen Smith, directo...

Babies born to native high-altitude mothers have decreased risk of low birth weight

...to the high altitude. The researchers measured uterine artery blood flow by ultrasound at 20 weeks and 36 weeks of pregnancy, and three months post-partum. They also tracked fetal growth across pregnancy using ultrasound to measure fetal head and abdominal circumference, femur length and estimat...

Laughing hyenas, wailing levees, the sound of cheese and blaring bagpipes

...y injected into the body to improve the quality of ultrasound images. In UMGD, the tiny particles are microbubbl...ted with DNA before injection. A targeted pulse of ultrasound energy "rings" the bubbles like a bell, popping th...prostates in the body. Unlike other therapeutic ultrasound technologies in development, which create heat to ...

Ultrasound imaging now possible with a smartphone

...o medical care and computing by coupling USB-based ultrasound probe technology with a smartphone, enabling a com... Science and Engineering, have made commercial USB ultrasound probes compatible with Microsoft Windows Mobile-ba... the two in 2008. In order to make commercial USB ultrasound probes work with smartphones, the researchers had ...

NPL Cavimeter receives 2009 UIA Outstanding Product Award

... trade organisation bringing together users and manufacturers of high power ultrasound systems. In granting the award, the Cavimeter was judged by the panel to be... 2008, the first Cavimeter sale was made to a UK manufacturer of high power ultrasound systems, and is now being used routinely to reduce set-up times for custome...

AIUM Presents 2009 Joseph H. Holmes Pioneer Awards

...s research includes studies in prenatal diagnosis, ultrasound in obstetrics and gynecology, and the biophysical ...medical journals, including the AIUM's Journal of ultrasound in Medicine . Dr Platt served as president of...from 1999 to 2001 and the International Society of ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology from 2002 to 2004. He...

AIUM presents 2009 Memorial Hall of Fame awards

...member of the AIUM and contributed to the field of ultrasound in medicine. This year's awards will honor Fred Wi...eer. He was a strong, early proponent of real-time ultrasound and is considered a pioneer of diagnostic ultrasou...Gray School of Medicine, in 1969. An early user of ultrasound in urology, Dr Resnick was an accomplished researc...

AIUM presents 2009 William J. Fry Memorial Lecture award

...d to the scientific progress of diagnostic medical ultrasound in their particular field. Alred Kurtz, MD, cur...dition, he has made wide-reaching contributions to ultrasound education. He chaired the Education Committee of t... J. Fry, was a physicist with a strong interest in ultrasound in medicine. His innovative research efforts advan...

Interventional treatment can be recommended as first-line treatment for 'silent killer'

...ce protocols are not justified; if a three-month surveillance scan doesn't demonstrate any abnormalities, then patients could be followed with routine ultrasound scanning to monitor for complications," he added. In total, secondary interventions were performed in 33 patients (7.2 percent), of which six (1.3 per...

Freezing prostate cancer does a man's body good

...dditionally, the use of 3-D transperineal mapping biopsy for determining the extent of prostate cancerwhen compared with the commonly used transrectal ultrasound (TRUS) biopsyheavily impacted how patients' disease was managed in 70 percent of the cases. "Our data show that focal cryoablation is as good for ...

Freezing kidney cancer: Hot treatment should be new gold standard for destroying small tumors

...hollow needles are inserted through the skin directly into a tumor. Interventional radiologists can observe and guide the insertion by combined use of ultrasound and CT. The needle, or cryoprobe, is filled with argon gas, which creates an ice ball, which rapidly freezes the tumor. The tumor is then thawed by re...

Novel veterinary procedure detecting life-threatening injuries touted

...e cause of death in trauma patients. Thoracic ultrasound has been infrequently used as a non-invasive, poin...rgency and Critical Care developed a new thoracic ultrasound examination called TFAST (Thoracic Focused Assessm...nary world, as the very first description of using ultrasound for these purposes was in horses more than 20 year...

Research yields new clues to how we locate objects in space

...cular sensory experience, like vision. The use of ultrasound technology provides an everyday context where peop... used this technology for their experiments. ultrasound works by using sound waves to generate images thro...ts look like. Doctors are increasingly relying on ultrasound technology to help guide them in a number of surgi...

AIUM to Host 2009 Annual Convention in New York

...Registration is open for the American Institute of ultrasound in Medicine (AIUM) 2009 Annual Convention and Prec...sional skills, and view the newest advancements in ultrasound technology while earning up to 33.5 AMA PRA Catego...nts unfold. A multitude of sessions in various ultrasound specialty areas will be offered throughout the con...

Whispering bats are 100 times louder than previously thought

... Annemarie Surlykke from the University of Southern Denmark is fascinated by echolocation. She really wants to know how it works. Surlykke equates the ultrasound cries that bats use for echolocation with the beam of light from a torch: you won't see much with the light from a small bulb but you could see severa...

Moving new technologies from the lab to the marketplace

...uring, opto-electronics, life sciences and material handling. This year, he received two more awards -- one for his low transient pulse technique for ultrasound imaging to detect and monitor bone fractures, and another for broadening the application base of the SmartPin, a new liquid dispensing/handling system...

Microarray analysis improves prenatal diagnosis

...ll amounts of DNA are lost or duplicated, children often have significant learning disabilities or health problems that could not be picked up with an ultrasound or other means of prenatal diagnosis, she said. "This test adds information we could not detect by any other means right now in prenatal diagnosis...

The 156th Acoustical Society of America Meeting, Nov. 10-14, Miami, Fla.

... "George Lewis, an NSF graduate research fellow in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Cornell University, has developed the first pocket-size ultrasound system for commercial, military and research applications." http://www.acoustics.org/press/156th/lewis.html ACOUSTICAL CLOAKING "This talk defi...

Acoustical Meeting, Nov. 10-14, 2008 in Miami, Florida

...s been demonstrated using a combination of focused ultrasound (FUS) and microbubbles, allowing large molecules t...bubble oscillation and/or collapse, during focused ultrasound to gain an understanding not only of what occurs t... microbubble is as important to BBB opening as the ultrasound itself, since the amount and extent of the region ...

Ultrasound shown to exert remote control of brain circuits

...s at Arizona State University has developed pulsed ultrasound techniques that can remotely stimulate brain circu...e (PLoS) One , provide insights into how low-power ultrasound can be harnessed for the noninvasive neurostimulat...rous applications in our daily lives. For example, ultrasound has been used in fetal and other diagnostic medica...

Jefferson Department of Surgery announces new pancreas tumor registry

...ive gene yet to allow predictive testing for pancreatic cancer, we can offer risk assessments and surveillance via imaging, blood tests and endoscopic ultrasound for patients with a strong family history of pancreatic cancer," added Dr. Yeo. Such high risk patients may be referred to a Jefferson gastroentero...

12-month ATLANTA trial data show sustained benefit of Catania Stent

...ocedural success rate in the ATLANTA Trial was 100 percent. Independent core laboratories analyzed quantitative coronary angiography and intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) data for all patients immediately after stent implantation and at 6-month follow-up. Further analysis of 1,904 cross sections (19,028 struts) ...

MU scientists go green with gold, distribute environmentally friendly nanoparticles

...ther of Nuclear Medicine (2004); Henry D. Royal, Peter S. Conti, past presidents of the Society of Nuclear Medicine; and Barry B. Goldberg, pioneer of ultrasound (2007)," Katti said. "This recognition is a tremendous honor and brings a large amount of prestige to our research group, the Departments of Radiology...

Ultrasonic frogs can tune their ears to different frequencies

... the eardrum did respond to sounds in the sonic and ultrasonic ranges. But they also saw something they couldn't explain: The eardrum's sensitivity to ultrasound sometimes disappeared altogether. Normally sound waves strike the eardrum and if they are powerful enough and in a frequency range that the animal...

Microbial stowaways: Are ships spreading disease?

...duce and even eliminate the microbes in their ballast water. A number of techniques are being looked at for this purpose, from filtration to biocides, ultrasound to ultraviolet irradiation, said Professor Dobbs. Our understanding of the issues involved will increase as more studies are carried out, particularly...

Mass. General study shows how exercise changes structure and function of heart

...cipating their normal team training, with emphasis on how the heart adapts to a typical season of competitive athletics. Echocardiography studies ultrasound examination of the hearts structure and function were taken at the beginning and end of the 90-day study period. Participants followed the normal tr...

Backpack straps can decrease blood flow in the shoulder and arm

...st their theory, they examined eight healthy volunteers, six men and two women between the ages of 18-30. The right brachial artery was measured using ultrasound and the index finger pulp microvascular flow was measured using the photoplethysmography method. Baseline flows were measured immediately before and t...