World Federation of Ultrasound in Medicine & Biology – what’s in a name?


Even though WFUMB was founded in 1973 there are many in the ultrasound community who are unaware of what WFUMB is and how it functions.

As the name suggests, WFUMB is a federation that brings together groups of ultrasound societies from around the world. There are six federations under the WFUMB banner:

AFSUMB (Asian Federation of Societies of Ultrasound in Medicine & Biology) which represents 18 societies with 22,731 individual members, MASU (Mediterranean & African Societies of Ultrasound) 8 societies with 700 members, FLAUS (Federation of Latin American Ultrasound Societies) 13 societies / 4,196 members, and EFSUMB (European Federation of Societies of Ultrasound in Medicine) 30 societies / 15,037 paid members. AIUM (American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine) currently suspended for non-payment of membership dues and ASUM (Australasian Society for Ultrasound in Medicine) are single entity societies representing 10,000 & 2,010 members respectively.

Each of these Federations has a governing council, elected by their member societies. The Federations then nominate two representatives to join the WFUMB Council for a two-year term and other representatives for WFUMB committees such as education and publications.

Although WFUMB is incorporated in the USA, no office space is required as there is only one part-time administrator and a part-time website manager who work from their homes.

WFUMB is funded by the Federations paying 1.50 USD for each member. This funding is used to support 19 Centres of Education around the world, providing speakers for federation meetings and providing free education via its popular website.

The WFUMB webpage is becoming increasingly popular with site visits averaging 48,000 per month with the largest volume being from the USA followed by Canada.

The online WFUMB ultrasound book was released in August and was the culmination of 2 years of work by a dedicated group of volunteers. Over 150,000 ultrasound enthusiasts have taken advantage of this great resource.

If you have any questions re the workings of WFUMB, please feel free to contact us at lrudd@wfumb.org

Sue Westerway

WFUMB Ultrasound Book – An overwhelming success


The early release of the WFUMB Ultrasound Book in June showed a huge amount of interest from day one. Our visitor numbers to the WFUMB site increased within hours of advertising the new e-Book on our social media channels and we could see that we were fulfilling a much needed gap in educational needs.

Since the Northern summer, development has continued on our e-Book with videos added to most chapters and finalising the long version chapters which required more detail. The versatility of the e-book format means we can keep our WFUMB Ultrasound Book current and update it as often as required. We hope this online resource becomes the ‘go-to’ for all ultrasound students in the future.


Our e-book visitor numbers have grown steadily over the last few months

- August (when officially published) visitor figures - 31,481
- September visitor figures - 41,681
- October visitor figures – 44,312
- November visitor figures – 47,956

The WFUMB Ultrasound Book is online now at http://wfumb.info/wfumb-ultrasound-book/ and is completely FREE to all. Each chapter can be downloaded and printed as a PDF for use in a teaching environment or for further reference.

Suzanne Cain

Thank you to Prof Christy Holland

Welcome Prof Paul S. Sidhu,
Incoming Editor-in-Chief of Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology 2022


The new incoming Editor-in-Chief of Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology, Professor Paul Sidhu, has given a short interview regard the reasons behind taking up the position, his previous experience in editing various journals and vision for the next 5 years for the journal of the World Federation of Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology (WFUMB).

A rare meet up at RSNA 2021


RSNA took place from 28 November to 2 December 2021 and a small group of WFUMB reporesentatives went along to met industry and see what developments have been taking place in the last 12 months.

Our very own Past President, Seung H Kim received honorary membership of RSNA 2021 for his services to urological ultrasound. Congratulations to WFUMBs past president for this well deserved award recognising his achievements. Seung had the following to say upon receiving his award ....

Thank you, President Mahony and thank you RSNA for giving me this honor. It is a great moment to me, a retired lifetime urogenital radiologist. As President Mahony mentioned, I am enjoying my post-retirement life with a specific condition, Nutcracker syndrome. I had been interested in this syndrome for quite a long time, but during the past two years after retirement, working with my nephrology colleagues, I found we know very little and even wrong about this syndrome. I am sure it’s a very common condition, and we have to confess we investigated too little and neglected too much about this condition, and about those patients with cause-unknown hematuria or proteinuria.

I accept this honor humbly, keeping in mind that RSNA encourages me to continue to share things I found about this condition with others. I think this might be a way of making radiologists more visible to our patients. I want to share this honor with my colleagues of the WFUMB, World federation of Ultrasound, and the Korean Society of Radiology, and my family including my wife Byung Hee, who is here with me as always. Thank you.

Seung H Kim

The success story which broke the WFUMB site


Over the last 4 years WFUMB EXB, the Publications Committees and Lynne Rudd have been working closely with the WFUMB Web Administrator to create a web site which could not only advertise WFUMB’s mission but maximise all the educational content available and create successful partnerships and collaborations.

The WFUMB site has grown hugely in this time and has undergone a great many changes. The global pandemic has highlighted our need for better digital communication in a world where travel remains sporadic and face to face meetings are less likely. The pressure to remain connected to our viewers has moved online. We need to engage our audience and keep them engaged!

The last 6 months has seen our numbers increase by over 350% mainly due to the release of our WFUMB Ultrasound Book. The visitors to the WFUMB platform increased almost immediately after the first release of the e-Book and continued to climb rapidly through the second half of the year. This culminated in a complete break-down of our site during a weekend in November. Our resources were at a maximum and despite some great efforts from our ISP we could not keep the site online for more than a few minutes. In reality, we had outgrown our webspace and could no longer operate on shared hosting.

Some fast action was required and over a period of 48 hours we moved to dedicated hosting and deployed our new design at the same time. We are pleased that our site continues to be popular and we will continue to develop and upgrade as required to enable us to spread the importance of ultrasound.


Quick Web Facts

  • Top five visiting countries to WFUMB web:
    1. United States of America, 2. Canada, 3. Great Britain, 4. Russian Federation, 5. Australia
  • Top five most visited sections on WFUMB web:
    1. WFUMB Ultrasound Book, 2. Home Page, 3. Ultrasound Workshop Presentations from 28th May 2021, 4. Interactive Case of the Month, 5. Webinars

Suzanne Cain

CoE Site investigation visit to Zanzibar November 2021


After meetings in WFUMB EduCom and WFUMB CoE TFG it was decided that Zanzibar/Tanzania could be a possible candidate for a new CoE. The chairman of WFUMB CoE TFG, OH Gilja organized a post-graduate ultrasound course at Mnazi Mmoja Hospital (MMH) close to Stone Town, Zanzibar. In addition, WFUMB was represented at the course with Chair of Education Committee, C Nolsoe and Director of Kenya CoE, S Vinayak to lecture and take part in discussions about a possible future CoE in Tanzania/Zanzibar. We also arranged for 3 hands-on sessions with scanning of patients, which were highly popular among the participants.

We held a 4-day “Post-graduate course in ultrasound” with 27 attendees, both doctors of various specialties and sonographers. The local organizer was Dr. Mohamed A. Said, MMH well supported by sonographer Khamis. The local committee did a great job in preparing the course. They were also very clear about their efforts to work interdisciplinary in a setting of a CoE. The evaluation of the course by the participants were very good and they were keen to have more courses administered by WFUMB.

On day 3, when we had observed the local eagerness and received the assurance and willingness of Dr. Said and Khamis to step up further and possibly become a WFUMB CoE, we arranged a lunch meeting to discuss the options,- with Sudhir online on Zoom from Nairobi.

We are optimistic that mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar can agree to have one common CoE with 2 nodes. If they manage to raise and agree on an acceptable leadership, we may in the future look forward to a full application to form a new WFUMB CoE in Tanzania.

Bergen, 20/11 -2021,
Prof. Odd Helge Gilja,
Chair CoE Task Force Group

WFUMB/EFSUMB Student Webinars


WFUMB has been collaborating with EFSUMB to produce student webinars over the last six months. There have been webinars held every month since June covering Liver, Kidneys, Spleen, Biliary System & Pancreas. Each webinar is recorded to enable us to show the presentations online after the event for further education.
Each Live events consists of ...

  • Introduction
  • Lecture (20´ + Menti)
  • US Journal club (15´ + Menti)
  • Casuistic/live Demo (25´ + Menti)
  • Discussion + prospect

Past webinar presentations can be found in our Webinars sections of the WFUMB site and have shown to be popular. See Here >>

The next student webinar event will be held on a Saturday during February 2022 (date TBC) and covers US of abdominal vessels See Here >>

New Partnerships are formed


WFUMB is delighted to announce a new partnership formation with ICUS.
ICUS, the International Contrast Ultrasound Society is dedicated to the safe and effective use of CEUS to improve patient care worldwide. ICUS is offering 18 free of charge webinars in 2022, live and later archived. The website also has interesting features like Case of the Day and “Bubble TV.”

We have also received confirmation of another partnership formation with WFPI - The World Federation of Pediatric Imaging.

The World Federation of Pediatric Imaging (WFPI) provides an international platform for pediatric radiology organizations united to address the challenges in global pediatric imaging training and the delivery of services. WFPI have a wonderful web site full of resources including a YouTube Educational Portal and Child Imaging Safety.

ICUS & WFPI join our other partners, WHO, ISUOG & ISR – we look forward to collaborating with all of these prestigious organisations throughout 2022.


WFUMB Congress 2022


We are waiting for you all in Timișoara between 25–28 May 2022 for WFUMB 2022/ EUROSON 2022/SRUMB Conference 2022.

The organizers are preparing an exciting scientific program with one day of postgraduate courses with different topics – Abdomen, Breast, Musculoskeletal US, Emergency US, Vascular US, Ultrasound for the GP etc., and two and a half days of scientific sessions where the experts will present the newest information in diagnostic and interventional ultrasonography, covering the usual broad range of topics. Finally, special attention will be paid to the presentation of the results of the original research in poster and oral presentation sessions.

The congress will be held in the new Convention Center from the center of the town. More details can be found on the congress website www.wfumb2022.com.

Visit Timișoara – The World capital of Ultrasound in May 2022!

Important dates!

Abstract submission deadline – 15 February 2022
Early bird registration fee – 15 March 2022
Regular registration deadline – 10 May 2022
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