Talk:3D ultrasound

I've
I've added a fact tag to the statement of the inventors of 4D because the noted inventors appear to be one of several possible candidates according to .--Gareth8118 07:25, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I really know nothing about the field, but it came up in a recent conversation I had... how useful is 3d ultrasound for clinical purposes? It looks to me as if it reveals little or no internal structure of the fetus - you can get the shape, but not see inside. I ask because during the discussion someone observed that there is a political factor. Real medical applications and sites seem to use almost only 2d ultrasound, while 3d is much favored by non-medical uses, in particular media organisations and pro-life/anti-abortion campanigners (Looking for photogenic pics and good emotional impact, respectively) - both of which seem concerned less with actually working out the condition of the fetus than with getting a clear picture of the face that people are more likely to react to emotionally. 82.34.90.218 (talk) 20:17, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Ultrasound and the fetus is all about measuring development, biparetal diameter, femur length and looking for developmental abnormalities. The difficulties of imaging a fetus, it moves and ultrasound is weak, meaning that you're not going to see the internal structure of the fetus. Another application of ultrasound is to check for down syndrome based upon nuchal translucency thickness.

Answer on: How useful is 3d ultrasound for clinical purposes?
In an article by Asim Kurjak and his team,, he concluded:

".... the main advantages of three-dimensional ultrasound in perinatal medicine and antenatal diagnosis include scanning in the coronal plane, improved assessment of complex anatomic structures, surface analysis of minor defects, volumetric measuring of organs, "plastic" transparent imaging of fetal skeleton, spatial presentation of blood flow arborization and, finally, storage of scanned volumes and images. It is our decided opinion that three-dimensional sonography has gained a valuable place in prenatal diagnosis, becoming a necessity for every modern perinatal unit .... ". Tommy17v (talk) 20:00, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

This article is terrible. I just came back from a ob/gyn who ordered a 3D ultrasound for diagnostic purposes that have absolutely nothing to do with pregnancy. It does have uses beyond just pretty pictures of babies and I was surprised to find this article mentions none of them. Someone should add this.--41.238.140.219 (talk) 20:01, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

This article is Terrible.

First, there is a weird focus in this article on fetal applications, specifically keepsake imagery, and fails to even mention the important cardiac applications of 3D imagery in measuring ejection fraction especially when dealing with a challenging patient.

As for 3D as a luxury vs. necessity. 3D is another tool that can be brought to bear. Current clinical practice may not involve the use of 3D ultrasound for certain applications, this doesn't make it useless, it just isn't used today. There is a time lag between the ability to generate the imagery and the clinical practice is defined and utility is identified. Often 3D imagery can make previously difficult to see structures or issues more visible. In fact, sometimes it can dramatically illustrate the problem for a surgeon. Look around for imagery of a prolapsing heart valve and you can see that if you're a surgeon you want to know as much as possible before going in. Here is a lecture on it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qffr528JuJA

Comment on utility of 3D ultrasound and internal structure of foetus
In response to (talk)'s comment above: "It looks to me as if it reveals little or no internal structure of the fetus - you can get the shape, but not see inside." Many obstetric 3D ultrasound scanners have tools to create a surface rendered view of some part of the 3D dataset. The rendered views of foetal faces etc. that are quite commonly seen do not constitute all of the image data from a 3D ultrasound scan, but only a surface chosen by the user. As much internal detail as in standard medical ultrasound scans is available from a 3D ultrasound scan. It all depends on what the user wants to display. Robotshed (talk) 15:03, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Advertising language throughout
This entire article sounds like it was written by people who sell this service. Leuchars (talk) 17:24, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree and have added templates for NPOV Check and Peacock. The positive representations of 3D ultrasound seem to be full of weasel words and peacock terms and bereft of citations. Lineslarge (talk) 22:09, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Public funds used for 3D ultrasounds in catholic/christian organizations
Someone deleted the above sentence in the article due to lack of proof. For evidence of this, See Caris's own financial statement, which states that more than a third of its funding came from the federal CBAE grant. Caris is a Christian-based free pregnancy clinic in the Chicago area with the stated goal of decreasing the number of abortions. They prominently advertise free ultrasound services for pregnant women. The CBAE grant has since been discontinued in 2010.

"4D"?
I noticed someone removed all reference to the phrase "4D" and stating that there is no actual term outside of advertising. In response, please see ACOG's (American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists) own definition of the different types of ultrasound here: http://www.acog.org/publications/patient_education/bp025.cfm In this article, they themselves refer to 4D ultrasound and provide the definition.

I have gone through and re-written the introductory paragraph referencing a Diagnostic Ultrasound text, but essentially, the volume (also called image) is 3D, a series of 3D volumes captured over time is 4D. 4D is actually the most common. Within echocardiography the reason is very obvious, the heart is beating and a single 3D image isn't useful, you need the whole heart cycle.

Dubious
I think the likening of 3D ultrasound to 3D movies is incorrect and should be removed from the lead - it has no citation. Lineslarge (talk) 22:31, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

They are nothing like 3D movies, although GE's Vivid machines now have 3D glasses (red and blue lens sunglasses) that provide that old-fashioned 3D effect and is quite a lot of fun to play with. I'm not 100% sure this is more than a novelty, but it makes for good illustrations when discussing the 3D data. I would expect that higher-quality 3D glasses will eventually become available, but 3D is already pushing the hardware pretty hard. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:700:300:1725:0:0:0:77 (talk) 14:07, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

3D ultrasounds might have risks... what about 2D?
The article says that there is no evidence of harm from 3D ultrasounds, but that there should still be an understanding that a risk might exist. Using that logic, the same should be said of 2D ultrasounds, especially since the FDA on their website says only to get one if medically necessary, that they can cause air pockets and heat up tissue, all which sound like potential risks to me. We should probably educate women more that ordinary doppler to hear the heartbeat uses ultrasound as well.

This whole page engages in some pretty serious scare mongering. The MI and TI values are specifically selected within FDA approved equipment such that there should be minimal tissue heating and cavitation. Furthermore, when compared to other modalities ultrasound is basically risk free. For example US doesn't involve ionising radiation. The risk factors for 3D and 2D are the same, the only difference being between the size of the ultrasound beam produced by the type of transducer in a cardiac, linear or 3D (often called 4D).

Coming back to heating tissue... anything that sends energy into a body is 'heating tissue', but given the power level duration and frequency of US examination you should not be heating tissue. Certainly less harmful that getting your teeth X-rayed periodically. If you need specific numbers, I can get them if you like, but I'm curious about the qualifications of the people writing this article.

Up to date pictures of older babies to better showcase the technology
The pictures and video in this article showing the 3D/4D ultrasounds are good for the 11 week old, but the 20 week old looks like older technology. With my undergraduate degree in physics, I find that the technology to be amazing and I think the pictures in this article do not do it justice (family just gave us some pictures of their 3D ultrasound). I am new to editing Wiki, and am unfamiliar with the process. What would it take to add pictures of an older fetus/baby (such as 30 or 35 weeks), and more recent technology? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Godsfunambulator (talk • contribs) 23:14, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
 * If you have some images that you can legally share (not under copyright by somebody else), then you can upload them pretty easily and put them into the article. See Help:Introduction to images with Wiki Markup/1. Staecker (talk) 01:05, 21 February 2016 (UTC)