Mount Sinai Emergency Medicine Ultrasound

The FAST exam is the prototypical application of emergency ultrasound. However, it is important to know that there are limited randomized controlled trials assessing the utility of the FAST exam. Despite this, let’s look at three good articles that  all emergency residents should know.

1. In this Cochrane review, the authors’ conclusion was that there was insufficient evidence for the use of ultrasound-based clinical pathways in the initial diagnostic workup of patients with blunt abdominal trauma. Ultrasound was not sensitive and lacked diagnostic accuracy. However, the use of ultrasound did reduce the use of CT scans. The take-home message is that ultrasound should not be used as a single rule-out test for significant intra-abdominal injury and the ED resident should be aware of ultrasound’s limitations.

Stengel D, Bauwens K, Sehouli J, Rademacher G, Mutze S, Ekkernkamp A, Porzsolt F. Emergency ultrasound-based algorithms for diagnosing blunt abdominal trauma (Review). The Cochrane Collaboration. February 18th, 2008.

2. Interestingly, this review used the same methodology as the Cochrane review and found that an adequately performed FAST exam can predict the need to send a patient to the operating room, with a high degree of sensitivity (98.9%) and specificity (98.1%).

Melniker LA. The value of focused assessment with sonography in trauma examination for the need for operative intervention in blunt torso trauma: a rebuttal to “emergency ultrasound-based algorithms for diagnosing blunt abdominal trauma (review)”, from the Cochrane Collaboration. Critical Ultrasound Journal. 2009;1:73-84.

3. Thoracic ultrasound has become part of the standard assessment of the trauma patient. Ultrasound has been shown to be much more sensitive than CXR in the detection of pneumothorax when compared to CT as the gold standard. There are many studies proving this point and this is a good example.

Blaivas M, Lyon M, Duggal S. A prospective comparison of supine chest radiography and bedside ultrasound for the diagnosis of traumatic pneumothorax. Acad Emerg Med. Sep 2005;12(9):844-849

In this series, we cut to the chase and highlight our choice for the the top three articles on a given topic. Read on for the articles and brief discussion.

Three DVT articles that every emergency physician should know. What are they?

1) If there is any “must know” article for DVT or PE, this is it: commonly known as the Well’s Criteria, it provides a framework for the EP to approach any patient presenting with the the suspicion of DVT or PE. It is the ability to categorize patients into the different risk categories that we’re able to effectively use pre-test and post-test probability of a negative D-dimer to rule out the disease.

Wells PS, Anderson DR, Rodger M, et al. Evaluation of D-dimer in the diagnosis of suspected deep-vein thrombosis. N Engl J Med. 2003;349:1227.

2) With the introduction of bedside clinician performed ultrasound, EPs now have a tool to evaluate the proximal lower extremity veins themselves. While there is abundant literature suggesting the feasibility of an EP performed bedside ultrasound, this review article showed that properly trained EPs can accurately diagnose DVTs with a pooled overall sensitivity and specificity of 95% and 96% respectively. However, several limitations were highlighted with regards to the available literature – there is no standardization of the technique used, and the studies involved EPs already highly trained in ultrasound and so the results cannot be generalized to all EPs.

Burnside PR, Brown MD, Kline JA. Systematic review of emergency physician-performed ultrasonography for lower-extremity deep vein thrombosis. Acad Emerg Med. 2008;15:493-498.

3) This large RCT compares 2 point compression ultrasonography plus D-dimer with formal ultrasonography in symptomatic patients with suspected DVT. The rates of  confirmed DVT at 3 months were similar in the 2 groups. This suggests that EPs can manage symptomatic patients suspected of having DVT with just 2-point compression ultrasound and D-dimer.

Bernardi E, Camporese G, Büller HR, et al. Serial 2-point ultrasonography plus D-dimer vs whole-leg color-coded Doppler ultrasonography for diagnosing suspected symptomatic deep vein thrombosis: a randomized controlled trial. JAMA. 2008;300:1653-1659.

Do you have other suggestions for studies? Comment below!