-
What to tell the ultra sound technician
I have written on here before regarding my Grandmothers excruciating left groin pain. After negative results on a CT scan she is booked for an ultrasound. She will be going to an ultrasound clinic so I worry that they won’t be well versed in exactly how to landmark a hernia in a woman. Are there any key words or descriptions I can use to help guide them in their search? I would hate for her to go and the results be negative based on an inexperienced technician doing the ultrasound. My understanding is that searching for a groin hernia is a fine art. Is this true or should I trust that if it is there it will indeed show up? Thanks so much!
-
6 Replies
-
What to tell the ultra sound technician
That makes me so happy! 😛 😆
Please promote HerniaTalk to your friends and also your surgeon and their staff.
Great success story. -
What to tell the ultra sound technician
Just an update!! The ultrasound was a success and sure enough my Granma has a femoral hernia. Finally after 24yrs of suffering a diagnosis has been made. She is scheduled for surgery in a week!!
-
What to tell the ultra sound technician
Thank you so much. We had the ultrasound technician read your response and she ended up being what seemed to be really thorough. Waiting to hear the results. Thanks again.
-
What to tell the ultra sound technician
An ultrasound looking for an inguinal or groin hernia should be ordered specifically as a “dynamic hernia ultrasound.”
The patient should be asked to stand, lie flat, cough, push belly out, rotate hip out, and walk around if necessary. Ie, if a hernia is not visualizable at the groin, then much time needs to be spent to actively force out a hernia, using Gravity and pushing out (bearing down) movements. Videos should be taken of the area and reviewed. Also, in women especially, the femoral region should also be reviewed as should any scars in the area, such as from a Cesarean section.
Ultrasounds are best performed by a skilled radiologist. But, nowadays, that is hard to find. I have one in my town who does it and he is very excellent at it. Most of the time, however, it is done by a technologist and then the still pictures and maybe some video clips are sent to the radiologist to review, without any patient interaction. This, the quality of the images and interpretation are very technician-dependent. As a result, I see a lot of falsely negative ultrasounds in my practice.
If an ultrasound is “negative” and there is high clinica suspicion for a hernia, then another imaging tool should be pursued.
-
What to tell the ultra sound technician
Do you have any step by step instructions I can pass on to the tech for our best chance of documenting some good diagnostic images?
-
What to tell the ultra sound technician
You are correct; ultrasound is very operator dependent. You need a tech who knows how to look for the hernia. The patient should be standing and the tech should be having them cough and strain.
Log in to reply.