Editorial

Guntram Lock

Dear colleagues,

It is a pleasure to introduce you to the 2nd issue of UIO in 2017, demonstrating, again, the wide applications and promising developments in ultrasonography.

The issue starts with a special editorial from Ioan Sporea from Romania, very well known for his scientific work on the clinical significance of elastography. Dr. Sporea outlines the central role of modern sonographic techniques for clinical decision making in modern hepatology. Together with the great advances in the treatment of chronic viral hepatitis, ultrasonography with elastography and CEUS as a “one stop shopping” facility may give us all the information we need to proceed to treatment, thus superseding liver biopsy in many (though definitively not all) patients with liver disease.

Wanyonyi and coworkers review the challenge and the benefits of universal access to obstetric ultrasound in Sub-Saharan Africa, a region in which perinatal morbidity and mortalities are still very high. Based on an analysis of the available evidence, they thoroughly discuss benefits and risks, use and misuse of obstetric ultrasound in a resource-limited setting.

In a second review in this issue, Ellerbaek and colleagues address the significance of intra-operative and laparoscopic ultrasound in the detection of synchronous liver metastasis at the time of open or laparoscopic surgery for colorectal carcinoma. They underline the evidence for a higher detection rate of metastases for intra-operative and laparoscopic ultrasound compared to preoperative CT, MRI and percutaneous ultrasound. As expected, this is especially true for sub-centimeter metastases.

In a study on sports medicine from Japan, Fukushima used ultrasonography of the ankle joint and compared a team of high school students with a mean age of 16.4 years to a 4 year older cohort of college students. Although there was no significant difference in the presence of ligament injuries between the 2 groups, pathologic findings like irregular bone contours or osteophytes in the talo-crural joint region were more frequent in the older group (and in sportsmen with a longer history of basketball playing).

The study of Parmar and coworkers takes us to India and analyses five distinct patterns of gall bladder wall thickening in 93 patients with serologically confirmed Dengue fever. In their well-illustrated study the authors conclude that the patterns of gall bladder wall thickening may not only be used to classify disease severity but also to predict prognosis.

Rominger and colleagues present an accurate study on needle visibility in ultrasound under contrast mode conditions. By varying different parameters, they provide us with valuable practical details to increase needle visibility when ultrasound interventions have to be performed under contrast-enhanced conditions.

Last not least 2 case reports demonstrate ultrasonographic findings of calcified liver metastases arising from a neuroendocrine tumor of the lung, and an incarcerated Meckel`s diverticulum in a rare so-called Littré hernia.

Dear readers, this issue spans a wide ultrasonographic bridge, comprising modern techniques like elastography, contrast enhanced interventions or intra-operative laparoscopic ultrasonography as well as valuable B scan ultrasound in settings varying form obstetrics to sports medicine. It takes us on a worldwide journey from Europe to the Sub Sahara, India and Japan, from basketball damaged ankle joints to Dengue fever induced gall bladder affections and gastrointestinal imaging in an emergency setting. I hope you enjoy reading as much as I did!