Ultrasound Used to Diagnose Bone Problems In Children

Ultrasound has been known to be effective in finding bone fractures involving superficial structures like the nasal bone and ribs.  The field of musculo-skeletal ultrasound is exploding and benefits like treatment of sprains, and arthritis are obvious.  I ran across an article discussing the use of ultrasound in the diagnosis of pediatric fractures.  An X-ray is not always adequate when detecting these subtle injuries because the bone of children sometimes lack  calcium the X-ray needs to visualize the fracture.  Ultrasound can identify the subtle inflammatory reaction of

the bone to the abnormal displacement of bone or joint cartilage.  Pictured above is an image of a broken rib.  Notice the displacement of the two fragments.  This is an obvious example.

By Helen Albert, Senior medwireNews Reporter

Ultrasound is a safe and accurate alternative to X-ray for detecting metaphyseal forearm fractures in children, say researchers.
Although an individual X-ray involves exposure to a fairly low dose of radiation, there is still concern about how harmful such exposure may be in the long term. This is a particular concern in children due to the proliferative nature of their bone tissue.
Building on previous studies that have demonstrated a good accuracy of fracture diagnosis using ultrasound, Kolja Eckert (Elisabeth Hospital Essen, Germany) and colleagues compared ultrasound and radiographic imaging of 76 German children, aged from 1 to 14 years, with suspected forearm fracture.

Thanks News-Medical

http://www.news-medical.net/news/20120925/Ultrasound-effective-for-visualizing-fractures-in-children.aspx