[Current status of vaginal sonography. Part I: Basic principles and gynecologic diagnosis]

During the last 8 years transvaginal sonography or vaginosonography has become an essential part of diagnosis in gynaecology and obstetrics. Due to the outstanding image quality of the pelvic viscera without requiring a full bladder technique, vaginosonography is performed more and more often in clinical and private medical practice. In several applications transvaginal scanning has replaced transabdominal scanning. Due to the development of small-diameter probes it is now possible to examine patients with an intact hymen or with a very narrow vagina. The combination of transvaginal probe and Doppler-/colour Doppler technique opens up new avenues in gynaecological ultrasound, especially for tumour diagnosis in the lower pelvis. However, transvaginal sonography cannot be used universally in gynaecology and obstetrics as the diagnosis is limited to findings in the lower pelvis because of the limited penetration depth.