Androgenic effects are growth of the penis and
formation of the scrotum. In puberty this is what
causes the voice change and growth of facial hair
and pubic hair, oily skin, growth spurts, and body
odor. Sperm has one primary function which is
fertilization. It is made of Head that has the nucleus
and acrosome, midpiece that has mitochondria, and a
tail that is flagellum. It has 18,000 genes or DNA to
the provide the females egg. The head carries the
DNA, the midbody carries mitochondria which is the
fuel for the propulsion system which is the
tail/flagellum. The Sperms path is through the
vagina to the fallopian tubes to breach the wall of the
egg and provide the DNA for sexual reproduction to
occur.
Now on to the physical part of investigating the
affected testis. After an abnormality has been found
or diagnosed, the next step is to make a confirmation
with a medical imaging device to gain a clearer
diagnosis on the problem. There are a few medical
devices that can get this clarity. Computed
Tomography(CT Scan), Magnetic Resonance
Imaging (MRI) and Ultrasound (Sonogram).
Ultrasound is the most common device that is used
because it can show a good image of the epididymis
and it’s internal physiology such as the vas deferens
which are the tubes that connect to the prostate
gland. It is also used for visualizing internal body
structures including internal organs, vessels, joints,
tendons, and muscles. “Images are obtained by
sweeping a narrow beam of acoustic energy into a
living body and analyzing the pattern of the energy
reflected back by structures within the body, much
like a search radar.” (Odom, B. (1999, May 1)
Ultrasound Analog Electronics Primer. Analog
Dialogue, 33-5 p. 1). Let’s take a deeper look into
how the equipment operates. The device itself does
not have very many attachments to it. It consist of a
computer with a display and keyboard to select and
manipulate the software with one probe. High
frequency 1-5 Mega Hertz sound waves travel into
the body and bounce off of the tissues. The reflected
waves are picked up and sent back into the probe
and sent back into the computer which has an analog
to digital converter that turns the data received into a
digital image that are sent to the display. The
computer calculates the distance from the probe to
the tissues or organs using the speed of sound in
tissues 5005 ft/s or 1540 m/s. This data then turns
into a two dimensional image on the display. Inside
the computer there are plenty of electronic devices
and integrated circuits. The input of the device is the
probe using piezoelectric crystals, then it goes to the
computers CPU which is where the data is
transmitted and received such as the signals to make
the transducer probe to send the sound waves. The
integrated circuit devices are a few operational
amplifiers and data bus switches an analog to digital
converter then a few processors to process the
transmitting and receiving data that turns into the
above digital image on the display. The Mux and
T/R switches are data bus signals that are transmitted
and received because the circuit has many to
process. It then next goes to the TGC amplifier
which is time gain compensation amp and it takes
the reflecting sound wave from the tissues and
lowers its signal also the delayed signals are
amplified. An operational amplifier produces an
output hundreds or thousands of times better than the
input signal. In this device they are used to boost the
probes input signal to the analog to digital converter.
The transmit and receiving beam former use a signal
processing technique for directional signals. The
HV TX amplifier deals with high voltages and
currents for the circuit and it overcomes the gainbandwidth product limitations of a conventional
voltage-feedback amplifier, capable of generating
high output signal swing with a wide closed-loop
bandwidth. There are 3 processors a Spectral
Doppler (D MODE), Image & Motion (B Mode),
and Color Doppler (F Mode). The Spectral Doppler
is analyzes the residue effect and compensate for the
residue by filtering the received Doppler signal. The
Image and Motion uses motion data from the probe
and calculate the time differences of the received
images to generate display data. Color Doppler
process digitized electrical signals generated by the
probes transducer. All three of these processors send
their generated data and present it to the display for
the technician to view the image that is being
probed.
In conclusion, ultrasound medical devices are ܙX]