Description:

Now I’ll demonstrate a couple of different functions of the ultrasound machine, used to optimize imaging.

I’m starting with a transverse image of Derek’s thyroid. The first thing I will show is adjusting depth, increasing the depth to image more posteriorly into the neck, or decreasing the depth to focus on more superficial structures closer to the skin.

Another thing that I can do is optimize the brightness- I can increase the brightness of the image or turn it down, to help increase the contrast of what I am imaging.

A tool to look at vascular structures is to turn on Color Doppler. If I turn this on, I can see color in the carotid artery, indicating motion or flow. Red indicates that the flow is going towards the probe and blue indicates it is going away from the probe, as indicated by the legend on the top left of the screen.

Another tool which is more commonly used in the chest is “M mode” which effectively tracks motion. We use this to look for pleural sliding in the chest, and to look for fetal heart beats in pregnancy. Here we can use it to follow the pulsations of the carotid artery.

Measuring tools are useful for determining the size of an object being imaged. Here we see the transverse distance across the thyroid.

Here is a link to the media file US Ultrasoud Controls.mp4