Accurate Imaging Diagnostics | Ultrasound Imaging, Bone Mineral Density Testing and Dexa Scan | Thornhill | Toronto

Accurate Imaging Diagnostics is a diagnostic imaging clinic that provides ultrasound and bone mineral density testing services from Thornhill – Vaughan

Ultrasound Services: Extended Hours Starting April 15th, 2019

Accurate Imaging Diagnostics is pleased to announce that we will be extending our hours for select ultrasound diagnostic imaging services at our Thornhill clinic beginning Monday, April 15th, 2019.

Our general and musculoskeletal ultrasound services will be available until 8:00 PM every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

In the near future, we hope to expand our extended hours to include all weekdays.

As a friendly reminder, we are also currently open on Saturdays from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM.

Call us today at 905-763-0009 or visit us online at https://accurateimagingdiagnostics.com for more information.

X-Ray service is coming to AID!

X-ray (or radiography) use electromagnetic waves to create images of your internal organs. It is mostly useful for producing pictures of bones. It can help doctors quickly diagnose fractures, injuries, or joint abnormalities. You can now get both ultrasound and X-Ray services at AID, with one referral. Let your doctor know today, and make it easier for yourself!

We are now in the process of preparing the room and setting up the machines.

 

Ultrasound used on the brain as a newly emerging therapy

Ultrasound used on the brain as a newly emerging therapy-Accurate Imaging Diagnostics

Transcranial ultrasound stimulation (tUS) has recently been gaining popularity as a means to modulate brain circuits. It has a wide variety of clinical and neuroscience applications, while other options for brain stimulation are limited. For instance, current stimulation and magnetic stimulation have limited spatial specificity, deep brain stimulation requires surgery, and optogenetics requires genetic modification. Compared to these options, low intensity ultrasound stimulation offers a non-invasive approach to stimulate the brain, with resolutions up to millimetres.

Studies on the effectiveness of tUS as a therapeutic treatment has been done for neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, major depressive disorder, Tourette syndrome, and obsessive compulsive disorder. tUS has been shown to increase certain brain chemicals in rats and elicited tactile sensation when targeted on the human sensory cortex. Most importantly, it has been shown to facilitate the recovery of patients from a coma after a brain injury.

More studies still have to be completed to test its specific effectiveness and limitations in humans, but tUS seems like a promising option to research as a therapy.

New ultrasound technology on a needle is advancing surgery

optical ultrasound needle-Accurate Imaging Diagnostics

A new optical ultrasound needle developed by researchers at UCL and Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) is allowing soft tissues inside the patient to be imaged in real-time. The team has been developing this technology in a clinical setting for over four years.

Minimally invasive surgery, or keyhole surgery, is a surgical technique that operates on the target location using a small incision located elsewhere in the body. Currently, doctors are relying on external ultrasound probes and pre-operative imaging scans to visualize the soft tissues. This has limits on resolution, location, and differentiation of soft tissues. This new ultrasound imaging needle provides a high resolution image of 64 microns (equal to 9 red blood cells), up to 2.5cm in front of the instrument, inside the patient’s body. This allows a detailed differentiation and real-time view of the soft tissues, without harm to the patient.

The optical ultrasound needle functions using miniature optical fibres that delivers a brief pulse of light. This light generates ultrasonic pulses that are reflected by tissues. The reflections are detected by a sensor on the second optical fibre, resulting in the real-time images. This new optical ultrasound needle can be used on needle tips under 1mm. It is good for small tissue targets and has potential application in guiding epidural needles.

Microbubbles plus ultrasound could replace biopsy for cancer detection

microbubblesA research team led by the Stanford University School of Medicine has confirmed the safety of intravenously-administered microbubbles for ultrasound-guided cancer detection, resulting in optimism for a future of greater diagnostic precision with fewer unnecessary biopsies.

The novel study led by Jurgen Willmann MD, a professor of radiology at Stanford, was published online in the Journal of Clinical Oncology in March 2017.

For the study, 24 women with ovarian tumours and 21 women with breast tumours were intravenously injected with microbubbles. Minutes after the infusions – using regular ultrasound technology – researchers could readily and clearly see that the bubbles had latched onto blood vessels within the tumours.

Microbubble technology is not new, but the Stanford study deployed specially designed, targeted contrast microbubbles that have high affinity for attaching to receptors called KDR or kinase insert domain receptor(s). These receptors are present only in cancerous tissue.

One of the keys for understanding the link to “fewer or unnecessary biopsies” lies in the fact that today’s ultrasound technology can certainly detect lesions of concern but many of these turn out to be benign.

Smaller than red blood cells, microbubbles are gas-filled spheres with a phospholipid coat; the same material human cell membranes are made of.

While the study was a necessary preliminary step to determine safety and feasibility in humans, the researchers believe they have established a foundation that could eventually help millions of people avoid unnecessary biopsies.

 

Written by: MaryAnne Pankhurst

Study Title: Ultrasound Molecular Imaging With BR55 in Patients With Breast and Ovarian Lesions: First-in-Human Results

Journal of Clinical Oncology http://ascopubs.org/doi/abs/10.1200/JCO.2016.70.8594

Authors: Jürgen K. Willmann, Keerthi S. Valluru, Amelie M. Lutz, and Sanjiv S. Gambhir, Stanford University, Stanford, CA

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