This also depends on the transducer you use, the organ you want to image, and the area you are in (e.g., if there is a good acoustic window or not). In an obese patient or one with emphysema, physics are way different, and overall, you will not get as many echos - image quality will be worse. In a very slim patient, ultrasound can penetrate the body easily, and you will get back a lot of echos. Why you have to adjust gain in every patientĪs each patient is different, each ultrasound examination is different. Gain is quite similar to the volume you set on your stereo's amplifier: if you turn it all the way down, you will hardly hear a thing if you crank it all the way up, you will hear mostly noise, but sound quality hardly benefits from it. In both extremes, you also lose contrast. Turning gain all the way up, on the other hand, shows a lot of echos you wouldn't usually see, a lot of artifacts, and again makes it harder for you to see properly.
If you turn the gain all the way down, you will have a very dark image and will have a hard time making out details. Each echo gets turned into a lighter or darker (depending on the echogenicity) pixel on your machine's screen, and gain dictates how much each echo is amplified. Gain is the amplification of the ultrasound signals your transducer records. This time, we will talk about the second most important setting when imaging your patients - gain and time gain compensation.
Ultrasound physics 101 how to#
You already learned a lot about imaging hardware and how to set your depth correctly. Each part will focus on a specific topic and allow you to experiment with the scanner, adjust the settings on your machine, and get the best out of your ultrasound examination.
In this 12-part series, we will talk about the basic principles of medical ultrasound, the equipment you will use, the settings on your machine, and of course, how to use sonography in your patients.
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