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STOP-ACTION (ULTRASONIC) SCANNER

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Stop-action scanning may be used to provide a frozen ultrasonic B-scan corresponding to a particular time in the cardiac cycle to identify the positions of the valve leaflets. It can be applied to a hand-operated static B-scanner by using the ECG R-wave to trigger the mechanism so that the image contains only lines corresponding to a particular time. Thus images of 'valves open' or 'valves closed' positions may be built up.

The same principle may be employed with a real-time scanner in which the frame freeze facility is invoked at the desired time in the cardiac cycle.

Content and Design Copyright 2000 Dr. Malcolm C Brown.  See Title Page for more details