Musculoskeletal Ultrasound: Accurate Localization for Achieving Visualized Rehabilitation

In recent years, with the improvement of ultrasound technology, especially in the development of high-frequency imaging, ultrasound has reached a new level, which has enabled more and more clinical doctors to use ultrasound to solve clinical problems, especially with the emergence of minimally invasive medicine. Musculoskeletal ultrasound has become an indispensable diagnostic and therapeutic tool for doctors because of its non-invasive, convenient, and real-time dynamic advantages.

Understanding Musculoskeletal Handheld Ultrasound

It is reported that musculoskeletal ultrasound is a new technology for the explicit diagnosis and visualization-guided accurate treatment of soft tissue injuries and diseases such as tendons and ligaments in the human body by using a handheld ultrasound scanning head, which has advantages such as high resolution, non-invasive, no radiation, convenience, movability, and real-time dynamic observation. It can also observe the movement of muscles and tendons in real-time. Especially, the high-frequency handheld ultrasound probe can significantly improve the micro-resolution and clearly display the tissue morphology or lesions of muscles, tendons, ligaments, nerves, and other tissues.

In the past, diseases related to muscles and bones generally required the assistance of CT, MRI, and X-ray examinations for diagnosis. However, musculoskeletal ultrasound has added a new perspective for the evaluation and treatment of musculoskeletal diseases and opened up a new world for more accurate diagnosis and treatment, which is called the "third eye" of clinical doctors. The handheld ultrasound technique has played an important role in the diagnosis and treatment of sports injuries, arthritis, and trauma.

Advantages of Musculoskeletal Handheld Ultrasound Therapy

• Cheap price. It is well known that there is a significant price difference between ultrasound and CT and MRI, and ultrasound is more easily accepted by patients;

• Fast postoperative recovery. As it can avoid large surgeries, arthroscopy and other treatments, it has significant advantages such as small trauma, short time, low risk, low cost, fast postoperative recovery, and fewer complications;
  

• High accuracy. Handheld ultrasound has soft tissue resolution that other imaging examinations cannot compare and can accurately diagnose and guide medication to the lesion;
  

• No radiation. It is more suitable for pregnant women and children;
  

• No magnetic interference effect. It is suitable for patients with metal implants in their bodies, such as patients with heart stents and pacemakers;
  

• Multi-angle scanning. Ultrasound examination is flexible in section and can scan a joint for 360 degrees;
  

• Dynamic scanning. The real-time nature of ultrasound makes it possible to observe the special manifestations of muscles, tendons, peripheral nerves, joints, etc., under dynamic conditions, providing important diagnostic information that other imaging examinations cannot obtain;
  

• Observing blood supply. Color Doppler handheld ultrasound can observe the blood supply of lesions;
  

• Comparative observation. It can be compared with the healthy limb to discover some hidden diseases;
  

• Strong repeatability. The non-invasive nature of ultrasound determines that it can be used repeatedly, especially for those who are not suitable for X-rays, CT, MRI, and other examinations.