Ultrasound sound waves pass harmlessly through skin, bone, and muscle, and thus can be used for imaging purposes. One of the most important advances in medical technology in recent decades, ultrasound is much safer than the use of X-rays, and is extensively used in the diagnosis and treatment of vein disease.

Standard Ultrasound Shows Your Body’s Internal Structures

As the high-frequency sound waves beam through the skin, they bounce off bones, tendons, blood vessels, and organs, and create a kind of sonic "map" of what is being visualized. A computer then turns the signals into a two-dimensional, black, white, and gray picture of the body parts being viewed. Standard ultrasound is useful when trying to detect physical abnormalities in your veins, and can detect any fixed blockages in them, such as blood clots. What standard ultrasound can't see is the blood as it flows through the veins.

Duplex Scanning Combines Standard Ultrasound with Doppler Ultrasound

Venous Doppler ultrasound is an enhancement to standard ultrasound scanning technology that adds color to the normally gray-scale images and allows the doctor to perceive motion inside the body. As a result, Doppler ultrasound images can show blood flowing through veins, determine the direction of the flow, and see whether any obstacles are present that are blocking or impairing the flow. 

To illustrate how this technology may help diagnose your condition, venous Doppler ultrasound would clearly show the presence of chronic venous insufficiency or venous reflux. The blood flowing backwards into your veins as the result of diseased venous valves would be very distinct from the normal blood flow on its way back to the heart.

Duplex ultrasound is just one of the state-of-the-art technologies we use at Cross County Cardiology – Mount Sinai to provide you with the most effective vein disease treatments possible.