What are the benefits vs. risks?

Benefits

• Most ultrasound scanning is noninvasive (no needles or injections).
• Occasionally, an ultrasound exam may be temporarily uncomfortable, but it should not be painful.
• Ultrasound is widely available, easy-to-use and less expensive than other imaging methods.
• Ultrasound imaging is extremely safe and does not use any ionizing radiation.
• Ultrasound scanning gives a clear picture of soft tissues that do not show up well on x-ray images.
• Ultrasound provides real-time imaging, making it a good tool for guiding minimally invasive procedures such as needle biopsies and fluid aspiration.
• Ultrasound is particularly valuable for evaluating abdominal, pelvic or scrotal pain in young children. It is also valuable for evaluating the brain, spinal cord and hip joints in newborns and infants.

Risks

• For standard diagnostic ultrasound, there are no known ha

  What are the limitations of Abdominal Ultrasound Imaging?

  Ultrasound waves are disrupted by air or gas; therefore ultrasound is not an ideal imaging technique for air-filled bowel or organs obscured by the bowel. In most cases, barium exams, CT scanning, and MRI are the methods of choice in such a setting.
  Large patients are more difficult to image by ultrasound because greater amounts of tissue attenuate (weaken) the sound waves as they pass deeper into the body and need to be returned to the transducer for analysis.rmful effects on humans.