3D Ultrasound – Part 4

Question and Answer Session

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Chairman (Andy): “Does anyone have any questions for the good doctors? There’s a microphone here and a microphone on the other side. Go ahead sir, please.”

Audience Member: “Would you kindly mention what are the limitations of this new technology and what are the difficulties you are facing while scanning the patients, and in what percentage of cases are you able to get a good 3D image? Thank you.”

Dr. Jorge Londono: “With this new technology, it has changed so much and as you saw in real-time, you start with a 2D image and then you decide if you’re going to need a 3D image to save it or not and that’s it, basically. It’s not like working with an extra workstation and doing double the job - I don’t think so. The first limitation that we have and the concerns that people had before and somehow still have is the 2D image resolution. But you have to think that it has improved an enormous amount in the last year or so and it’s going to improve much more. The technology’s out and what you can expect from this is just much, much better images and technology. How many patients do I do with this exam? I can do every 2D examination that I need with this kind of machine to get a good image. What I think is the hardest part is to get a good 2D image, once you get it, the 3D image is usually very good. You need some kind of training to manipulate the image, it’s not what you get because then you have to work with the image and get the plane that you need.”

Chairman (Andy): “This question is actually for Dr. Schild. “

Audience Member: “Dr. Schild, in one of your slides at the beginning of your presentation you said ‘supervised 3D training’. What I’d like to know is what’s the learning curve on this, I mean, how long does it take to learn how to do this?”

Dr. Ralf L. Schild: “I can just tell you about my personal experience. I started out and I went to a special course for that and that helped me a lot. I can’t tell you how many days a week that is it depends. When you get supervised teaching right at the beginning, that will be great because then you can be told all the tricks and the downfalls and that will help you enormously so it just depends on the situation. It helped me a lot when I started doing that and I can only recommend getting those supervised sessions just to help you over the first few attempts at 3D. Of course, it’s a different technique, you have to get used to all the different steps and you have to work on that.”

Audience Member: “I’m Charles Usala from Nigeria. Will this three-dimensional ultrasonography help in the diagnosis of uterine synechia Asherman syndrome?” 

Dr. Ralf L. Schild: “Yes.”

Audience Member: “Has it got any advantages over the two-dimensional?”

Dr. Ralf L. Schild: “I can answer that question as well, yes, it does. What we do in our unit is to install some fluid as well and to do a 3D scan. There has been papers in the literature saying that 3D with that fluid installation helps you at finding Asherman syndrome because that is one of the diagnoses of uterine abnormalities and is one of the strengths of the 3D because that third plane that you get with the 3D ultrasound you will never get with the 2D ultrasound. This is just looking for the position of IUD’s - intrauterine device, looking for uterine abnormalities - subset uterus, bicornate uterus, and double uterus - that technique is perfect. In our unit we don’t do hysterosalpingography, we just use 3D ultrasound just to exclude uterine abnormalities.”

Chairman (Andy): “Thank you guys. Jorge, could you stay for a second? For all of you, first of all thank you very much to our three great speakers. Some of you are lucky enough to have stayed and are eating dessert and one of you will be lucky enough to have a My-Sono 201 digital, portable ultrasound equipment in about ten seconds. So who would like to win an ultrasound piece of equipment tonight? Really, not all of you, okay, good. So that is the prize and I will ask Dr. Londono to choose and we may have to go through one or two, or the first one could be the lucky one. Please excuse me if I do not pronounce any of your names correctly. Anybody here from Finland, Dr. Poutamo?” 

Dr. Jorge Londono: “Oh my God.”

Dr. Poutamo: “Yes, that’s my name.”

Chairman (Andy): “Congratulations.”

Dr. Poutamo: “Thank you.”

Dr. Jorge Londono: “Congratulations.”

Chairman (Andy): “We’ll take a picture then we are going to send you the machine.”