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Point-of-care ultrasound for acute abdomen: 5W1H (Translated version)

  • Special Feature: Review Article
  • The role of point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS)
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Abstract

In this paper, point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) for the initial diagnosis and the management of acute abdomen is discussed. POCUS is supposed to be executed mainly by doctors other than ultrasound specialists anytime and anywhere such as in the emergency room or the intensive care unit. Although it seems rather difficult to cover the wide spectrum of organs as well as diseases causing acute abdominal pain, the author advocates a “six approach” for the diagnosis and triage of acute abdomen, which consists of scanning at eight points in less than 5 min. With this method, the attending doctor can diagnose most of the diseases frequently encountered in patients with acute abdomen, which can help patients avoid unnecessary examinations or admissions. However, users of POCUS should be aware of its limitations, especially when they are using pocket-sized ultrasound equipment. Therefore, users should be careful when ruling out a disease even when they cannot find any pathological findings, and consider the need for further examinations such as US done by specialists with high-end equipment or CT. Since there has been no standard curriculum in Japan for POCUS training that should deal with basic physics and techniques for US, normal abdominal anatomy, typical pathological US findings, and interventional US, the establishment of a learning program for doctors and training of experts as instructors of POCUS are needed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Clinical Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Kawasaki Medical School, 557 Matsushima, Kurashiki, Okayama, 701-0192, Japan

    Jiro Hata

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  1. Jiro Hata
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Correspondence to Jiro Hata.

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The author has no conflicts of interest to declare in association with the research related to this paper.

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All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1964 and later versions.

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Informed consent was obtained from all patients for being included in the study.

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This paper was originally published in Japanese in our Japanese-language journal (Jpn J Med Ultrasonics 2019; 46: 25–33).

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Hata, J. Point-of-care ultrasound for acute abdomen: 5W1H (Translated version). J Med Ultrasonics 49, 609–618 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10396-022-01203-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10396-022-01203-9

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