CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--A medical ultrasound conference may be the last place physicians expected to be asked: Does your dog kiss you?
But that’s exactly the question asked Thursday during a presentation in Chicago on the benefit of using contrast enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) to resolve a range of medical problems including the identification of a tapeworm that is increasingly migrating from coyotes to dogs to humans, causing a potentially fatal liver mass.
Dr. Stephanie Wilson, a radiologist at the University of Calgary, said that CEUS was able to quickly identify the tapeworm-induced liver masses in four patients who were emergently sent to surgery and survived. Dr. Wilson spoke at the 38th annual Advances in Contrast Ultrasound conference and is co-president of the International Contrast Ultrasound Society.
“These masses are fortunately still rare but they require aggressive surgery, and conventional tests for the presence of tapeworm eggs can take many weeks,” she explained.
But we are so accustomed to using CEUS as a versatile and reliable problem-solving tool, so we naturally turned to CEUS when we encountered an upsurge of tapeworms in our area.”
Physicians more typically use ultrasound contrast agents to diagnose heart and vascular disease, identify and characterize tumors, monitor chronic gastro-intestinal diseases, evaluate other serious medical conditions and monitor therapy.
Unlike contrast agents used for MR or CT, ultrasound contrast agents do not contain dye, create no known risk of kidney damage or deposit of contrast media in the brain, and do not expose patients or hospital staff to ionizing radiation.
The conference in Chicago drew CEUS experts from North America, Europe, China, Japan, Israel and Brazil.
Ultrasound contrast agents are manufactured and sold by Bracco, Lantheus and GE Healthcare.
ABOUT ICUS:
The International Contrast Ultrasound Society (ICUS) is a nonprofit medical society dedicated to advancing the safe and medically appropriate use of contrast enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) to improve patient care globally. Membership in ICUS is available free of charge and there is no fee for ICUS CME-accredited educational programs, newsletters or other resources.
To join ICUS and learn more about CEUS, download ICUS Connect and visit the ICUS website (www.icus-society.org).
