Ultrasound

James Trachtenberg is off base in his letter about Bill Mifflin and Councilman Michael Nutter. It is an open secret that Mifflin has lost the confidence of anyone who cares about Fairmount Park. That's why the William Penn Foundation recently gave a big grant to the Park Conservancy, a private organization, and not to the city, so Mifflin won't control it. Bravo to Nutter for his heads-up move to get money for the park's strategic plan. Donna D'Allassandro Philadelphia His head is spinning I am laughing hysterically over mayoral spokesman Frank Keel's whining letter regarding Carla Anderson's Live Stop article.

EVEN HEIRLOOMS are appraised before owners decide whether or not to part with them. Surely the heirs to parents' genes should warrant the same consideration - but not according to abortion-rights advocates. The ever-enunciating president of the National Abortion Rights Action League, Kate Michelman, promptly protested recently proposed legislation that would help non-profit health clinics pay the price of ultrasound equipment for use among women with unplanned pregnancies.

Talk about not getting a chance to prove yourself in spring training. When Clemente Alvarez reported to the Carpenter Complex last Thursday, he was called into assistant general manager Ruben Amaro's office before he ever went on the field, and asked if he wanted to be the team's bullpen catcher this season. "I guess they thought I had no chance to make the team," deadpanned the 32-year-old non-roster invitee. After mulling it over for a few days, Alvarez accepted the offer yesterday.

My daughter turned 6 months old last week. Veronica loves to roll across the living room, and drink from her sippy cup, and splash in the bathtub, and laugh at Daddy's fish lip faces, and yank really, really hard on Mommy's hair. She kicks and squeals and wails and gurgles and bounces and greets us each morning with a smile that could melt Antarctica. Looking back at photographs from the past half-year, we are astounded at how fast she has grown. First week home, first nap in her crib, first Halloween, first solid food, first Christmas - the Kodak moments seem to multiply exponentially.

A memorial service will be held this afternoon for Bernard Sigel, a prominent surgeon whose research advanced the use of ultrasound imaging. Dr. Sigel, 70, died Tuesday in Philadelphia from heart failure. He spent most of his career at the Medical College of Pennsylvania, where he acted as president, dean, and chairman of surgery. A decade ago, he continued writing grants and carrying out business through the ordeal of his own heart transplant. "Dr. Sigel was an extremely intelligent, very soft-spoken, quiet, understated man, but he had the heart of a lion," said colleague Andrew Roberts, a professor of surgery at MCP. The way he handled his own heart transplant showed "extraordinary levels of personal courage," Roberts said.

Dr. Howard Pollack, an internationally known expert in radiology and urology and professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania, died Wednesday at Abington Memorial Hospital. Dr. Pollack, 72, helped develop the use of imaging techniques such as ultrasound to diagnose and treat diseases of the urinary and reproductive systems and was a pioneer in using lithotripsy, or shock waves, to crush kidney stones. A longtime resident of Cheltenham who lived more recently in Jenkintown, Dr. Pollack edited the textbook that is considered the bible of the field of uroradiology, and doctors from across the world called on him for advice.

A national chain of schools for ultrasound medical technicians settled for $7.3 million a federal class-action lawsuit yesterday that alleged the schools are a moneymaking sham that may have put patients at risk by training unqualified students improperly. Executives of Whitman Education Group Inc., based in Miami, the largest operator of for-profit ultrasound vocational schools in the country, have denied the allegations. The suit was brought by Kelly Smith, a 1997 graduate of Bucks County's Ultrasound Diagnostic School in Trevose, and four other graduates.

In a medical advance that could end painful finger pricks for the seven million diabetics who do them every day, researchers have extracted blood sugar right through the skin, without needles. The technique uses ultrasound to open microscopic spaces in the skin through which a tiny bit of fluid can escape. The fluid is then analyzed to determine glucose, or sugar, levels in the blood. The method, which was successfully tested on seven diabetics, is reported in the current issue of the journal Nature Medicine.

When she got pregnant at 39, Anna Harp knew her age raised the risk that her baby would have Down syndrome, the most common chromosomal birth defect. But the college professor from Binghamton, N.Y., also had concerns about trying to detect the disorder before birth. The standard blood test used to screen all pregnancies misses 40 percent of fetuses with Down syndrome, which causes mental retardation, heart defects, and distinctive facial features. Yet the definitive diagnostic test - an amniocentesis, which she would automatically be offered because of her age - occasionally triggers a miscarriage.

In winter, the South Pole Station is the closest thing Earth has to a space colony. There are no television, no newspapers and limited telephone time. For nearly six months there are no sunlight and no escape, not even for someone who gets hurt or sick. Officials reaffirmed yesterday that a 47-year-old woman now stuck at the South Pole after discovering a possibly cancerous lump in her breast must wait until fall (spring down there) to come back. No one has ever attempted a winter landing at the South Pole, because airplanes can't function in the typical winter temperatures, which average minus 80. Darkness, high winds and blinding snowdrifts add to the peril.