Nerve Ultrasound: Ready for clinical practice?
- Author:
Einar PV Wilder-Smith
- Publication Type:Review
- From:Neurology Asia
2012;17(1):1-4
- CountryMalaysia
- Language:English
-
Abstract:
With the tremendous advance in technology, imaging methods have fi nally entered clinical routine
for the assessment of the peripheral nervous system, after having already been employed for a long
time in the realm of the central nervous system. Although both Ultrasound (US) and Magnetic
Resonance Imaging (MRI) show good soft tissue resolution, US is more suited to everyday clinical
practice, boasting easy accessibility, superior spatial resolution and low cost. MRI’s main role lies
with the imaging of deeper lying nervous structures and when US imaging is obscured by bony
structures. Nerve US quantifi es and anatomically pinpoints changes in nerve size and echotexture and
is therefore useful for the identifi cation of nerve entrapments, trauma, tumours and infl ammation. It is
also important for clinicians to realise that US imaging can reveal conditions even in the absence of
signifi cant neurophysiological abnormality. Furthermore, developments in nerve blood fl ow assessments
have the potential for quantitating nerve blood fl ow, and thus providing new assessments of ischemic
neuropathies.
- Full text:P020150707437958601951.pdf
