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by cpfohl 2974 days ago
Seems worth mentioning that incorrectly used an ultrasound can burn bones. (Specific frequencies in bony areas moved too slowly).

I didn't do enough research to understand this (but just enough to verify it). I learned it initially from my wife who's an NP. When I mentioned a previous DIY ultrasound article to her she looked skeptical and mentioned the risk of bone burns.
2 comments
carbocation 2974 days ago
I have never heard of this being an issue for diagnostic ultrasound. Since I’m trained in (cardiac) ultrasonography, I think this would have come up... I also did a brief lit search and didn’t identify any obvious examples.

I suspect your wife is referring to therapeutic ultrasound, which can damage bone [1]. But this is not the ultrasound people are getting of their heart, abdomen, or pelvis in general.

1 = https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/11731056/

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bencollier49 2974 days ago
Even diagnostic ultrasound has been implicated in foetal brain damage (through cavitation). And ultrasound operators are known to often suffer from damage in their dominant hand.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.7863/jum.2009.28...

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modeless 2974 days ago
> ultrasound operators are known to often suffer from damage in their dominant hand.

Do you have a citation for this? I don't see anything about it in your link.

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bencollier49 2974 days ago
The comment from memory, but I found this paper:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8066232

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lostlogin 2974 days ago
US Bio effects of diagnostic US are discussed at (painful) length in undergraduate radiography training here in New Zealand. We are fairly well aligned with the UK in our training pathway but in my (limited) experience echo techs don’t seem to come from a radiography background while ultrasound ones do. Could be a local situation though. Broadly, the priciples seem to be ALARM and perhaps don’t do ‘souvenir’ scanning of foetuses. I wonder if anywhere follows that.
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carbocation 2974 days ago
Good point, my training excludes fetal ultrasound, so this might be one reason yours and mine differ.
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cpfohl 2974 days ago
See! I learned something new today! :D
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agumonkey 2974 days ago
funny, while trying to learn more about that, I find this https://www.verywell.com/ultrasound-for-faster-bone-healing-...

:)

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