Walk Down Down

o safely gain intravascular access using the transverse orientation, the needle is placed at an approximately 45-degree angle perpendicular to the transducer at the midway point. As the needle is advanced, the US probe is used to “walk” down the needle by finding the tip at regular intervals. The ultrasound is slowly moved down the shaft of the needle until just past the tip. At this point the ultrasound will be beyond the tip and the bright needle will disappear from the ultrasound screen. Then to confirm what is be ing seen the ultraosund probe is brought back to the needle and it will again appear as a bright spot on the ultrasound screen. In this way the tip location is knonw and confirmed at all times. Once the tip loaction is assured the needle is advances a small amount and the tip is then found and confirmed again. In this way you can walk the needle down to and well into the vessel lumen in a very precise and reproducible manner