UNDERSTANDING BACK TROUBLE: FURTHER TESTS-CAT (OR CT) SCANNING AND ULTRASOUND SCANNING
This stands for computerised-axial tomography. It can be used on any part of the body, but is particularly useful for examining delicate and not easily accessible tissues, such as the brain and the spinal canal.
It takes rather longer than ordinary X-rays, but is not unpleasant. You have to lie still on a sort of couch for 15 to 20 minutes while X-rays are taken all round the spine, and a computer combines the information they give to produce a series of pictures of a cross-section of the spine at any given point, and also of the adjacent tissues. CAT-scanning uses lower dosages of radiation than other X-ray techniques. The technique is sensitive enough to show up disc bulges and degeneration even without a contrast medium, though it can also be combined with myelography.
Ultrasound scanning-This painless technique works rather like radar: by means of a microphone-like probe, which is passed over the back, inaudible ultrasound waves are directed at the spine, and the echoes which are bounced back are picked up by the probe. They are used to build up a picture of the spine on a monitor screen; one use of ultrasound is to measure the width of the spinal canal.
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