Abdominal imaging addresses the health of all organs in your abdomen and pelvis, including the liver, gall bladder, bile ducts, spleen, pancreas, adrenal glands, kidneys, stomach, small and large intestine, aorta, inferior vena cava, male/female pelvic organs, bones and more.
Some Abdominal Imaging Procedures Include:
This is an accurate and noninvasive imaging procedure used to assess and evaluate certain gastrointestinal problems, such as inflammatory bowel disease (including Crohn’s Disease), infectious enteritis, lymphoma or tuberculosis. It also can be used in patients with gastrointestinal bleeding to determine if a small bowel polyp is causing the bleeding. Enterography may be performed using MRI or CT.
The biliary system is comprised of the liver, gallbladder and bile ducts, and a hepatobiliary exam, or HIDA, evaluates issues in that system. A radioactive tracer is injected (or inhaled or swallowed) and then taken up by the target organs. In this way, the clinician can see how well they function. It shows if the bile ducts are closed or leaking, or if the gallbladder is inflamed, or if the liver is abnormal. HIDA is a nuclear medicine test, which delivers information that often cannot be obtained by other procedures.
Ultrasound imaging of the pelvis uses sound waves to produce pictures of the structures and organs in the lower abdomen and pelvis. There are various types of pelvic ultrasound including abdominal, vaginal and rectal. These exams are frequently used to evaluate the reproductive and urinary systems. Ultrasound is safe, noninvasive and does not use ionizing radiation.