Ultrasound

The Ultrasound Department of Dongguan People's Hospital grew out of the Electrocardiography and Ultrasound Room and was established as a department in January 2002. Since its establishment its techniques have developed rapidly; a number of techniques have filled gaps in the city's technical capabilities and it has entered the advanced ranks of Guangdong Province.

At present, the ultrasound medicine service consists mainly of four parts: the Wanjiang Campus, the Puji Campus, the Xiegang Campus and the Honglou Campus. The department has 64 medical and nursing staff, of whom 55 are doctors, including 3 chief physicians and 3 associate chief physicians (Chinese professional-title system); it has 1 doctoral degree holder and 11 master's degree holders. In 2015 the Ultrasound Department obtained status as a standardised residency training base for the specialty, and in 2017 it obtained status as a national clinical drug trial base.

Advanced equipment ensures that ultrasound diagnosis continues to move towards greater precision; the department has more than 40 advanced ultrasound diagnostic systems.

According to Xie Yuhuan, the discipline leader of the Ultrasound Department, the level of specialisation in ultrasound medicine is steadily increasing; the department has a complete range of subspecialties and has substantial technical and clinical experience in thoracic and abdominal ultrasound, cardiovascular ultrasound, superficial organs, body-surface masses, obstetric and gynaecological examinations (including fetal malformation screening) and interventional ultrasound. Among these, cardiac ultrasound and contrast-enhanced ultrasound are the hospital's areas of strength, with its professional level in an absolutely leading position in the city and having entered the advanced ranks of the province.

The department was the first in Dongguan to carry out a number of new techniques, such as transoesophageal echocardiography, three-dimensional fetal ultrasound screening, interventional ultrasound and contrast-enhanced ultrasound; this established the leading position of ultrasound in the Dongguan area and made it the representative institution for the level of ultrasound in Dongguan, with several new techniques filling gaps in Dongguan.

At present the Wanjiang Campus has 20 ultrasound consulting rooms, with an independent sterile interventional ultrasound room, a patient observation room and a patient preparation room, and 6 consulting rooms have been reserved in the oncology ward building that is about to be completed.

The Ultrasound Department actively plays a leading role in the field of ultrasound in Dongguan and readily takes on the responsibility of "passing on skills, helping and guiding". Since 2008, for ten consecutive years, the hospital's Ultrasound Department has persisted in organising ultrasound image reading and case discussions in Dongguan every quarter, forming a unique academic exchange platform in Dongguan and effectively raising the level of ultrasound diagnosis in the Dongguan area.

Scope of diagnosis and treatment The Ultrasound Department has a complete range of subspecialties and has refined skills and clinical experience in thoracic and abdominal ultrasound, cardiovascular ultrasound, superficial organs, body-surface masses and obstetric and gynaecological examinations (including three-dimensional/four-dimensional fetal colour Doppler ultrasound).

Featured techniques Transoesophageal three-dimensional echocardiography Because the oesophagus lies close to the heart, transoesophageal echocardiography improves visualisation of cardiac structures. On the basis of two-dimensional imaging, transoesophageal three-dimensional echocardiography combines three-dimensional ultrasound images with the time parameter to display, in a stereoscopic way, the morphology, size, spatial relationships and motion of the heart and great vessels, further improving diagnostic accuracy; it is an important direction in the development of cardiac ultrasound. Our hospital was the first in Dongguan to carry out transoesophageal echocardiography in 2005 and carried out transoesophageal three-dimensional echocardiography in 2011; at the same time it carried out interventional procedures in cardiology and cardiac surgery, and valve repair, guided by transoesophageal three-dimensional echocardiography. "Transoesophageal three-dimensional echocardiography is the technical strength of our department," said Xie Yuhuan. This technique can clearly display the spatial structure of the heart and its adjacent relationships; it is the navigator of cardiac surgery, and in particular the use of intraoperative transoesophageal three-dimensional echocardiography has greatly facilitated the performance of cardiac surgery.

Interventional ultrasound Interventional ultrasound is a branch of modern ultrasound medicine — a new technology developed on the basis of ultrasound imaging to further meet the needs of clinical diagnosis and treatment. Its main feature is that, under the monitoring or guidance of real-time ultrasound, procedures such as puncture, aspiration, catheterisation and drug injection treatment are performed, achieving effects comparable to those of surgery. The Ultrasound Department of our hospital began interventional ultrasound work in 2005 and sent several key technical staff to well-known hospitals elsewhere in China for further training; it was the first in Dongguan to carry out ultrasound-guided puncture aspiration and sclerotherapy for hepatic, renal and ovarian cysts, abscess drainage catheterisation, contrast-enhanced ultrasound of organs, and thyroid fine-needle aspiration biopsy. In June 2018, our hospital was the first in Dongguan to open an interventional ultrasound outpatient clinic. "Interventional ultrasound places high demands on operative skill; at present our hospital is the second prefecture-level city hospital in Guangdong Province able to carry out interventional ultrasound," said Director Xie Yuhuan. Interventional ultrasound brings patients more treatment options. For example, for hepatic cysts, puncture and drainage can be performed under interventional ultrasound — a veritable "pinhole minimally invasive surgery".

Contrast-enhanced ultrasound Contrast-enhanced ultrasound involves injecting a liquid containing microbubbles (an ultrasound contrast agent) into a superficial vein of the arm; it reaches organs throughout the body through the blood circulation and enhances imaging, revealing lesions that are not clearly shown by or cannot be definitively diagnosed with conventional ultrasound — such as liver cancer, hepatic metastases, hepatic haemangioma, hepatic abscess and cirrhotic nodules — thereby reaching a definitive diagnosis. Since 2009 our department has been the first in Dongguan to carry out this technique. In 2011 the department was the first in Dongguan to carry out transvaginal three-dimensional ultrasound hysterosalpingography; this technique can display the morphology, structure and patency of the fallopian tubes in real time, dynamically and three-dimensionally, and is of great significance for the diagnosis of infertility. It received a Dongguan scientific research project grant and has undergone appraisal of its results. In 2017 the department carried out cardiovascular contrast-enhanced ultrasound, using ultrasound contrast agents to observe cardiac chamber structure and myocardial microcirculatory perfusion, thereby improving the diagnosis of cardiac diseases. This technique is also a first in the city, and the hospital is one of the few in the province carrying it out.