An ultrasound technique now allows doctors to see coronary arteries inside out in real time, yielding information that is beyond conventional angiography.

The technique is available in India but few operators know its full use, a cardiologist from Philadelphia said at a doctors’ conference on Friday.

The use of intravascular ultrasound was one of the topics discussed at the 10th edition of Bangla Interventional Therapeutics (BIT-2020) meet in Rajarhat from January 31 to February 2.

More than 500 cardiologists from India, Bangladesh, the US and other parts of the world discussed latest trends, treatment methods and case studies during the conference.

“Intravascular ultrasound is widely available in India…. But most operators don’t know how to use it properly. Even in the US, where it has been available for a long time, only 12 per cent of the operators actually use it,” Sanjog Kalra, director of complex coronary therapeutics at Einstein Medical Centre in Philadelphia, told Metro on the sidelines of the conference.

“Angiography gives you the picture of what the artery is like as a tube. Functionally, the angiogram is just a representation of contrasts through an artery. Intravascular ultrasound is a camera that you actually put inside the artery — where you can image the artery from the inside layer all the way to the outside. You get very precise measurements of the size of the artery, the type of blockage you have, the way the artery is shaped. When we treat the artery, we know precisely how to treat it,” he said.

Experts from the Cardiovascular Research Foundation, New York, shared their case studies at the conference.

“The aim of the conference is to exchange ideas on global best practices,” said interventional cardiologist Rabin Chakraborty, the founder of BIT along with Afzalur Rahman of Bangladesh.

“With international collaboration, we also provide training to budding doctors in southeast Asia,” Rahman said.