Symptoms that indicate an upper limb arterial ultrasound scan usually include you having very cold painful fingers or hands. In come cases you may have numbness, discolouration or ulceration of the fingers . You may have already undergone a different procedure, for example an angiogram, where the doctors have accessed the arteries in the arm. If this is has happened the doctors may want to confirm that there has been no damage to the artery during this process.
The upper limb arterial ultrasound scan will image the brachiocephalic, subclavian, axillary, brachial, radial and ulnar arteries. We use colour and pulsed wave doppler modalites to throughouly investigate each of the arteries and determine how significant any plaque/disease may be.
Arrive 5 minutes before your appointment time to allow any paperwork to be completed. Please use the toilet in this time prior to your scan. Once you have been called into the ultrasound room you will need to remove some clothing. The sonographer will let you know exactly what you need to remove however you will most likely need to take off any clothes that cover your arms/shoulder area. If you are wearing a singlet you may be able to leave this on.You may leave your bra on if you are wearing one although the sonographer may need to move the strap slightly whilst scanning across the shoulder area. Once you are ready the sonographer will instruct you to either lie down on the bed or sit on the side of the bed. The gel will be cold and the ultrasound probe will be pressed gently across your neck, shoulder and arm all the way to your wrist. Your sonographer will instruct you if you need to move your arm to ensure all the arteries can be imaged. The scan usually takes 10-20 minutes per arm.
The sonographer will check through the images and produce a worksheet with the relevant information which is then rechecked by the vascular surgeon. If you are seeing one of our specialists on the same day as the scan then they will be able to give the result immediately. Otherwise your report will be sent back to the referrer within a day or two. You can contact the referer to arrange a time to discuss the results. If the sonographer identifies any urgent problems then they will discuss it with our vascular specialists and your referrer immediately and let you know if you need to do anything further.
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