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."

Comments

Dangerous occupation

[fishdan]

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?

Just get a dolphin or a bat to do it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Those critters have evolved some pretty spectacular ultrasound techniques.

Thar she blows!

[ObviousGuy]

It's funny how a technology based on whales' object location techniques has come full circle.

Sonar's picking up--my God, what is that thing?

[Vishniac]

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.

Re:America, Land of the Fat

[Simon Field]

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.

Re:Easy one this!

[Simon Field]

There are 560 calories in a Big Mac.

There are 310 calories in McDonalds' large Coke.

When 35% of the calories in a meal are removed, it can make quite a difference. A person could eat 3 Big Macs a day and still be under the recommended 2,000 calories. But add the Coke, and you are 610 calories over your limit.

If you throw away the bun, the Big Mac would probably fit in an Atkins diet plan, and maybe even taste better.