NARH's Digital Ultrasound Gives Clearer Picture

By Tammy Daniels
iBerkshires Staff
07:04PM / Friday, October 02, 2009

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Sonographer Donna Blair, left, watches as Maria Cook of Siemens demonstrates how to use the new ultrasound machine at North Adams Regional Hospital on mom-to-be Kelli Kozak.

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The blobby gray image wiggled, then suddenly there was a fetus breaking into a yawn.

The soon-to-born child of Kelli Kozak demonstrated on Tuesday the leaps in ultrasound technology being used in hospitals across the nation and right here at North Adams Regional Hospital.

The new $121,000 Siemens digital ultrasound imaging system was being put into practice this past week in the hospital's imaging department and doctors were already seeing the difference, said radiologist Dr. Henry Gold.

"Whether it's apparent to the layperson, I'm not quite sure," he said. "But today when we had two rooms going — the new room and the not-so-new room — there was a huge difference to my eye of what I was seeing."

The advantage of a digital system over the hospital's current analog machines are that, like new digital televsions, a computer can manipulate and interpret the data for greater detail.

The higher resolution offers a more complete picture, said Gold. "If you can't see it, you can't it, you can't prescribe it, you can't make the diagnosis. ... The resolution is just suberb it allows us to see tiny things inside of the developing fetus. We can see very early the health of the fetus the status of the fetus."

The ultrasound machine, the first in the upgrade from analog to digital technology, said Northern Berkshire Healthcare President Richard Palmisano, was purchased in large part from funds raised through the annual Northern Berkshire Healthcare golf tournament, sponsored by MountainOne Financial Partners.

The demonstration gave Hoosac Bank President Donald E. Keagan, also co-chairman of the golf tournament, MountainOne Assistant Vice President Liz Bissell and, most importantly, nine-months' pregnant clerk Kozak a chance to the money they'd help raise put to work.

Keegan recalled how 20 years he'd looked at a blurry sonogram and was told "look, it's a boy!" had to wonder, "is it a person?"

There was no such wondering during Kozak's readings, as Maria Cook, clinical application specialist for Siemens, pointed to fingers and toes, fat cheeks, heart and wide-mouthed yawn. "These pictures are amazing. I can't beleive it," said Kozak, as hospital staff and co-workers crowded around her. The baby is scheduled to born on Monday.

"What we're seeing here is normal anatomy," said Gold. "If there were a problem in that sort of display it would be very apparent. We could make the diagnosis much earlier in the pregnancy; we'd know about and be able to plan for it."

The machine also can be used to look at vascular systems, the abdomen, tumors and masses, and offers advanced breast imaging. A machine designed  for mammograms will arrive at the hospital next week. Cook said the Siemens ultrasound machine is also going through clinical trials for use on liver diagnoses. 

In looking at the body's blood pumping abilities, said Gold, "it's not just the actual picture [you get], you can analyze velocities of [blood] flow ... you're able to establish how narrow a vessel is, whether it's open or not, whether it's responding to treatment or not."

Cook said it was a matter of better imaging: "You see a lot more ... there are lot of automated functiosn that make it easier for the stenographer."

The Siemens also uses a data technique called "elasticity" that offers a better look at the depth and size of an object, in particular tumors and cysts in breasts. Cook showed several examples of tissue masses as regular sonograms and as an "elastogram." Pointing to a malignant tumor, she said, "you can actually see the extension of the cancer that's invading the tissue around it."

Gold said it was a useful tool for examining cysts and tumors that weren't obviously benign or malignant and could help cut back on the number of biopsies.

He said, "all of these things are marvelous; I would never have imagined being able to see these 30 years ago when I started my career."

But the one thing everyone expected to see, couldn't be seen. Baby Kozak refused turn into the correct position to confirm if it was a boy — proving that even the best technology in the world can be stumped by a willful child.

"You'll find out Monday," said Cook.

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