[Possibilities of laparoscopic ultrasound diagnosis]

Both pre-operative transvaginal sonography and laparoscopical diagnosis leave gaps in the diagnosis of adnexal tumors. The combination of both methods seems to fill these gaps. For diagnosis with Laparoscopical Sonography a special scan head is needed: After removing the optical components there was a little linear-array installed into the original gastroscope with a diameter of only 9 mm which enables maximum flexibility during examinations. The linear-array consists of 128 crystals with a frequency of 7.5 MHz (penetration depth: 6 cm), enabling B-Image Sonography, Pulsed and Color Doppler as well as Angio-Color-Technique. Laparoscopical Sonography in addition to transvaginal and transabdominal sonography leads to progress in diagnosis and therapy. As the scan head can be placed directly in front of the area which is normally hardly detectable diagnosis is possible and plannings for the further operations as well as color-doppler controls during operations can be improved. In several cases this method allowed detection of metastases of the liver which were not visible by transabdominal ultrasound.