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More Effective Ultrasound Using Naval Sonar Tech
Makarand writes "With obesity levels skyrocketing in the west it is becoming necessary to find
more reliable ways of effectively scanning obese patients using ultrasound
especially when the organ of interest in under layers of fat resulting in
poor ultrasound images. Latest advances in ultrasound are increasing the accuracy of
the imaging systems by using image enhancement methods borrowed
from the Navy's sonar equipment according to this BBC News article. The Navy's sonar techniques effectively double the resolution in
ultrasound systems. The technology could be in hospitals within a year."
Who wants to tell the 450lbs woman that you are going to scan her with the sonar that a Navy ship occasionally uses to detects whales?
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
Those critters have evolved some pretty spectacular ultrasound techniques.
It's funny how a technology based on whales' object location techniques has come full circle.
I have been pwned because my
Just imagining someone so obese that they can only have an effective ultrasound done by a Navy submarine is enough to make me squirt milk out my nose.
"Of course, if you start to slap 10 to 15 centimetres of fat on top of that you've..." got the makings of a damn good sandwich!
This lobster was alive when it hit the frothy, boiling water.
the day that they can use sonar to peirce the insides of planets, stars, etc. Totally unrelated, but still very interesting...
this is not a sig.
Just slap the fat & see where the ripples go!
Or more sinsibly, tell them the "diet coke" is fucking useless when ordered with a super-sized big mac!
Clever use of your new vocabulary, but the work was done in the U.K., by a U.K. company, for the U.K. National Health System.
20% of men there, and 25% of women there are clinically obese. 60% of men are overweight, and 40% of women.
In the U.S., obesity ranges from 13.8% in Colorado to 24.3% in Mississippi, with averages less than 20%.
As to the aspersions cast upon cows, the obesity rates amoung bovines are below 2%. We're getting less like cows all the time, which is too bad for our health.
Free book: Science Toys You Can Make
Helioseismology has matured to the point that it can be used to image the far side of the sun", which is impressive, considering the sun is 1.4 million kilometers in diameter. SOHO strikes again.
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
Doctors should just encourage people to lose some weight.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
My doctor couldn't track my gall bladder until he installed the new navy sonar software and set it to scan for magma displacments.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
> Latest advances in ultrasound are increasing the accuracy of the imaging systems by using image enhancement methods borrowed from the Navy's sonar equipment
I hope they're not using the Navy's new equipment that makes whales' heads implode.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
That they're using ultrasound technology like this.
The alternative might be the adaption of seismic imaging technology (looking for oil bearing strata, etc.) into the medical arena using explosive charges to send a seismic wave through the patient:)
"Provided by the management for your protection."
"This technology allows you to double the resolution of the sonar at any given distance.
"If you're looking for a mine at 400 metres, the picture you get would be as clear as if it was 200 metres away."
Um... wouldn't that be quadrupling the resolution?
"Clever use of your new vocabulary"
Some days, ya just gotta troll. Muscle/Fat ratio, no, the average american fatass is nothing like a cow. In size, intelligence, and odor, however, they're disturbingly similar
because of the increase in obesity? shouldn't we be borrowing the Naval physical training regime instead of their technology?
It's a surface ship sonar. They couldn't find fat on Star Jones.
As a grad student studying the physics of ultrasound, I wish there were more details. It sounds like this company has announced some image processing technique that improves both navy sonar and medical ultrasound. Here's a little background about how ultrasound quality decreases with depth.
There are (at least) two issues when it comes to seeing through layers of fat: attenuation and beam spreading. Both of these are fundamental to the physics of ultrasound.
Attenuation refers to the decrease in amplitude in the ultrasound wave as it passes through a medium. The effect is exponential with depth, so that if at some point the amplitude is 10, at some later point it is 10 e^(-a d), where d is the distance between the two points and a is the attenuation coefficient (a property of the medium). This limits how far ultrasound can penetrate in tissue since the signal can quickly get to be about the same magnitude as electronic noise.
The other problem is beam spreading. You need a narrow "beam" of ultrasound to be able to know where an object is the field of view. The width of the beam is related to how well you know the size of the object. Just like with a flashlight, the further you are from the source, the wider the "beam". With a wider beam, you know the size of an object with less precision, hence you have less image resolution.
Both of these are problems that could be reduced with image processing. But the company's web site is down and there are few details in the article.
This article doesn't say much of anything, but I've found some interesting sonar stuff on my own before.
One technique that is, IMHO, underappreciated, is phase-conjugate sonar. When a reflected signal is received by a network of sensors, it is played back in reverse from all the sensor locations. The time reversal causes the wavefronts from all the emitters to arrive back at the target simultaneously, creating an even stronger reflection, and probably making the target's ears ring.
I've been thinking of using this technique for a subwoofer blaster, but I haven't gotten around to it. Maybe medical science should be given priority.
---- "If we have to go on with these damned quantum jumps, then I'm sorry that I ever got involved" - Erwin Schrodinger