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Pastimes : The Justa & Lars Honors Bob Brinker Investment Club -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: marc ultra who wrote (14454)	6/14/2000 9:48:00 PM
From: marc ultra	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15132

OT: SONO. I noticed this on my Reuters medical news. I recall some were discussing this a long time ago. I have no opinion personally. I think their website is sonosite.com Novel portable echocardiography machine tested By Melissa Knopper CHICAGO, Jun 14 (Reuters Health) - Someday soon, physicians may carry something besides their stethoscopes: a portable ultrasound machine, researchers predicted at the American Society of Echocardiography meeting this week. The 5-lb echocardiography device only became commercially available in December, but physicians from five different medical centers across the country have already had a chance to test it. They presented their assessments at the Chicago conference on Tuesday. In general, most physicians found that the new technology works nearly as well as the larger machines, with some limitations. "It's useful in the emergency room or in the primary care setting," Dr. Jongsoo Lee told Reuters Health. Dr. Lee's group studied the hand-held echocardiography machines at Oregon Health Science University in Portland. Researchers also had good luck when they carried the portable machines on rounds in the critical care unit at Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston. "It will give you an idea of what's going on with the patient, but it's not complete," sonographer Santhinidevi Ramasamy explained to Reuters Health. The hand-held devices detected many types of heart problems, such as cardiac defects or an enlarged atrium, Dr. Ramasamy said. The biggest limitation, however, is the lack of spectral Doppler technology, which shows blood flow and velocity inside the heart, she added. In many cases, however, the portable echocardiography machines have the potential to become an extension of the physical examination, according to researchers from Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. They found a portable model made by the Bothell, Washington-based SonoSite, Inc. compared favorably with a regular-sized echocardiography machine, in many cases. "It could be used extensively in the emergency room for abdominal trauma, ectopic pregnancy, fetal ultrasound or fluid on the lungs," Dr. Allison Prichett, a Mayo Clinic cardiology fellow told Reuters Health. "As the technology improves we'll probably have more capabilities." Next, Dr. Prichett said, the medical experts will have to decide who should have access to the technology. It might be limited to trained sonographers and cardiologists, or the technology could be expanded for use by family physicians and nurses. Guidelines for training and licensing procedures will also need to be developed, she added. -Westport Newsroom 203 319 2700