MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia: Ultrasound

Medical Encyclopedia

Ultrasound

Ultrasound is a scanning technique used to image the growing fetus. The transducer portion emits inaudible sound waves, which fan out as they travel through your abdomen. When they hit dense structures like the fetus and the wall of your uterus, the sound waves bounce back to the transducer and are translated into a visual image by the computer.

Update Date: 10/24/2006

Updated by: Stuart Bentley-Hibbert, M.D., Ph.D., Department of Radiology, Weill Cornell Medical Center, New York, NY. Review provided by VeriMed Healthcare Network.

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