Medical Physics Seminar - Monday, March 31, 2008

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Prospects for Effective Uterine & Cervical Elastography

Maritza Hobson

Research Assistant

Department of Medical Physics

UW -School of Medicine and Public Health

Madison, Wisconsin

Dysfunctional uterine bleeding is the cause of many gynecological visits and can be due to the presence of different uterine abnormalities which can have similar ultrasound (US) appearances, leading to more invasive hysteroscopy or more expensive MRI for diagnosis.  Treatments for these conditions are significantly different; thus, methods that can accurately diagnose the conditions are being sought so that unnecessary surgical procedures can be avoided. Manual palpation is a form of diagnosis that has been used for centuries to differentiate between normal and abnormal pathologies. However, palpation is subjective and does not provide quantitative information that can be compared from one patient visit to the physician to the next and often cannot be easily performed on organs such as the uterus. US strain imaging (elastography) is superior to manual palpation because it is depicted as an image of the local strain distribution; which may have the potential to provide additional diagnostic information for evaluating dysfunctional uterine bleeding.

The combination of ultrasound B-mode and strain imaging of the uterus may allow physicians to make improved noninvasive diagnosis and to choose the appropriate treatment method for dysfunctional uterine bleeding. In vitro ultrasound strain imaging as well as measurements of the viscoelastic properties of normal and abnormal uterine and cervical tissues will be presented along with strain imaging results of two anthropomorphic uterine phantoms that mimic the saline infused sonohysterography (SIS) method, which would provide a mean of performing in vivo strain imaging of the uterus.

Location: 1335 Health Sciences Learning Center (HSLC)

Time:  4:00pm-5:00pm

Refreshments will be provided prior to the talk

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