Enter Your Email Address to Receive a
Copy of MedicExhange Member Demograhpics

An ultrasound machine, a first in the country according to doctors from the Jaslok Hospital, will treat fibroids without any cuts or stitches.

It will minimise the risk of losing the uterus. Moreover, clinical trials are on to see if the machine is effective for treating tumours in the brain and liver, cancers of breast and prostate, and bone metastases.

At present, removing uterine fibroids involves a rigorous procedure starting with anaesthesia and hospital stay. ExAblate 2000, the machine, does away with all these. “It saves the patient from the painful trauma,” Dr WM Gedroye, consultant radiologist at St Marys hospital in London, said. Gedroye has treated over 500 fibroid patients with this technology.

The ultrasound energy passes through the layers of skin, muscle, fat, and other soft tissues, he said. “When high intensity ultrasound energy is focused on a small target, it raises the temperature of the tissue and destroys it.” The ExAblate 2000 combines magnetic resonance imaging with ultrasound allowing the physician to detect the fibroid. Once it is detected, the machine targets the tissue with its ultrasound waves and destroys it.

Source: Jaslok Hospital

Discuss more about Ultrasound in the Ultrasound user group.