Used Ultrasound Probe: Should You Replace or Repair ?

Ultrasound Probe ( also known as Ultrasound Transducer ) and its effective working functionality plays a  pivotal role in a reliable and accurate patient diagnostics.

Down the years, Many concerns have been raised on using a defective used ultrasound probe as it can cause harmful consequences to both the users ( sonographers, practitioners and radiologists) and patients. Such effects include infection transmission, affected image quality leading to misdiagnosis and electrical shocks. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        “Prevention is better than cure” - Erasmus Desiridus            

As the saying goes by, Probe Preventive maintenance is always a better choice rather than spending thousands of dollars for the ultrasound transducer repair. According to Various studies, it has been indicated that 35% - 40% of the used ultrasound probe in a non- tested hospital requires to be attended.

With an experience of 10+ years in the ultrasound probe repair field, we have repaired around 3500+ used ultrasound probes in total.

From our experience, at any point of time, around 30% of ultrasound probes need some kind of attention/repair.

The key to this article is all about early inspection of your ultrasound transducer before it advances to the major transducer problems. We would also like to throw light on how early intervention and inspection of your probes could considerably help you in saving money for repair.

It also highlights the difference between refurbished and second hand ultrasound probes and points to consider while replacing your damaged ones.

Table of Contents:

1. Visual Inspection

2. Cost Analysis

3. Choose the Right Service Repair Provider

4. Replace the Transducer : Refurbished vs Second Hand Ultrasound Transducer

1. Visual Inspection of Used Ultrasound Probe

• Visual inspection of your transducer on a daily basis is a key to prevent major repairs.

• As per our internal data collected, it is noted that OEM/ Manufactured approved chemicals , in some cases tend to cause detrimental effects on the probe. Even in many moments, improper application of OEM approved chemicals can variably attract short and long term consequences to your transducers.

• It has also been reported that your ultrasound transducer’s matching layer gets swollen due to the over immersing of the probe in the non-recommended levels of gels or sterilising agents. Such faults could result in shadowed or dropout images.

• Be it sterilising agent / gel or disinfectant, fluid ingress can lead to performance deterioration over the time.

• One of the common defects which can be detected early such as the Housing gap assembly. The separation of the seam line from the nose cone which acts to be the site for fluid gel ingress. It is important to note that failure of housing gap problems can ultimately lead to the major probe crystal damage issues where you would need to shell out a large amount of money.

• Early detection of housing gap defects can help you save a considerable amount of money via preventive repairs, without the need to progress to the major repairs stage. 

• Strained relief serves as the point of contact between the cable and probe. The absence of On-time intervention of the strain relief conditions may lead to damage of wires in the cable and connectivity issues.

• In most of the cases, Probe oil leakage generally happens in 2 cases namely 

1. Dome crack and Puncture issue 

2. Dome with housing gap issue

These types of leakage conditions create a wavy shadow scan images.

• Some of the scan issues that can be identified from a damaged probe 

1. Delamination 2. Dropouts 3. Non- uniformity reverberation patterned images