Clinician-performed thyroid ultrasound.

This article is intended to demystify the process for those with a potential interest in acquiring ultrasound skills. It is not intended to be a comprehensive review of head and neck ultrasound but, rather, is focused on the bare minimum requirements and considerations involved in clinician-performed ultrasound. The article covers the initial diagnosis and the unparalleled usefulness of ultrasound for surgical planning just before incision.

Ultrasound physics in a nutshell.

This content presents to the neophyte ultrasonographer the essential nutshell of information needed to properly interpret ultrasound images. Basic concepts of physics related to ultrasound are supported with formulas and related to clinical use.

Relational databases for rare disease study: application to vascular anomalies.

Objective: To design a relational database integrating clinical and basic science data needed for multidisciplinary treatment and research in the field of vascular anomalies. Based on data points agreed on by the American Society of Pediatric Otolaryngology (ASPO) Vascular Anomalies Task Force. The database design enables sharing of data subsets in a Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)-compliant manner for multisite collaborative trials.

Evaluation and imaging of a thyroid nodule.

The approach to the thyroid nodule has been incrementally modified over the past decade. The widespread adoption of fine needle aspiration in the 1980s, coupled with increased use of serial ultrasound monitoring, arguably led to the biggest changes in recommendations for surgical intervention during the past 50 years. For the office-based practitioner, thyroid nodule presentation patterns are changing with discoveries of more thyroid "incidentalomas" and with new risk assessment challenges associated with small (<1 cm) nodules.