Equipment

The uterus and ovaries lie deep in the female pelvis. The ultrasound sound waves will need to pass through several normal parts of the body before reaching the uterus and ovaries.

Low frequency sound waves (e.g. 3 MHz) can penetrate deeper into the body than high frequency sound waves (e.g 12 MHz). Therefore the probe needs to be a low frequency.

The ideal probe will be a curvilinear (or curved array) probe, as these probes usually operate at lower frequencies than linear array probes.

Curvilinear probes will also have a wider footprint (Fig 1) than linear probes. It is easier to identify the anatomy with a wide probe footprint, as this provides a wide field of view.