[Technical R & D and future applications]

Medical imaging is closely related to technological progress. During the last twenty years considerable progress enabled sonography to assess musculoskeletal structures more and more accurately. Development of new high frequency transducers, harmonic imaging, Doppler sonography and contrast agents resulted in better image quality and increased diagnostic accuracy. Nevertheless, future technologies may provide new additional functional and qualitative possibilities. The limitations of musculoskeletal sonography are rather well established. Some are probably due to physical "obstacles" that future technology could resolve. Elastography and heterogeneous tissues focalisation are examples of experimental applications which could push back the limits of our current practice. But the future of sonography cannot be reduced to a purely technological dimension. It also depends on clinical and paraclinical evaluation as well as on widely available education programs directed to promote a wider diffusion and improved clinical use of sonography.