Ultrasound

Musculoskeletal Diagnostic Ultrasound

While most people are familiar with the use of diagnostic ultrasound to visualize a fetus in a mother's womb, such sonography, or sonographic imaging, is in many cases the radiologic method of choice in visualizing tendon, ligament, bursa and muscle. In the field of radiology, musculoskeletal or MSK ultrasound imaging is widely accepted as a standard imaging method for extremity joint problems. For example, our high frequency ultrasound imaging of shoulder rotator cuffs and knee collateral ligaments provide higher resolution and significantly more detail than MRI. Our doctors are trained in diagnostic ultrasound imaging by the faculties of the University of Michigan Radiology Department, the Mayo Clinic, and Jefferson Medical College, among others.

Ultrasound Procedure Guidance

Interventional pain management, our focus at New Mexico Pain Management, is often best performed with ultrasound visualization guiding the procedure, looking inside the body as the procedure is occurring, and directing the physician visually. In this manner, nerve blocks are safer and more exact, requiring less local anesthetic. Such real time visual guidance allows us to place grafting material very precisely within small tears in the rotator cuff, elbow tendons, or knee ligaments. Such ultrasound procedure guidance, also known as sonographic needle guidance, enhances the use of many of our procedures, and without visual needle guidance, some of the most precise of our procedures cannot be carried out.

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Musculoskeletal ultrasound has significantly higher resolution than MRI