The AHRQ recently published an update to its landmark 2001 report, Making Health Care Safer: A Critical Analysis of Patient Safety Practices (AHRQ Evidence Report No. 43). This report advocated evidence-based practices such as root cause analysis, hand hygiene, ID bracelets for high risk patients, and time-outs prior to procedures.

The 2013 update analyzed 41 patient safety practices and identified 22 which were deemed ready for adoption. Ten were selected as “strongly encouraged” for adoption based on the strength and quality of evidence. Number nine on that list was “Use of real-time ultrasound for central line placement.”

A special supplement to the March issue of Annals of Internal Medicine features articles related to many of these patient safety strategies, and is available for free online.

Looking through the top ten list, most interventions are implemented at most major hospitals, and JCAHO surveyors track adherence to guidelines such as these. Now that ultrasound use has made the top ten in two iterations of these AHRQ safety practices, it may be more difficult to argue that lack of availability or proper training absolves providers of the need to provide this service.

This symposium is always worth the trip.  See you there.

It’s been out awhile now, but if you haven’t seen it yet, take a look at Mike and Matt’s Introduction to Bedside Ultrasound.  The ultrasound pocast guys have released this excellent overview of point of care ultrasound through the iTunes Store.  This is certainly convenient as most of us have 3-12 iDevices on our person at any one time.  Caveats are that this means that it is available only on an iPad using iBooks 2 or later, and ios 5 or later.  Right now it is $29.99.

There is a lot of good content, but I think the best chapter in the book, is probably the RUSH chapter. :)

Subpleural consolidation:

Confluent B-Lines:

occur when multiple B-lines coalesce. In contrast, the next example demonstrates multiple discrete B-lines.

Multiple B-Lines:

And now for something completely different

For more details on the sonographic appearance of viral lung pathology, check out this article by Jim Tsung.

Anyway, here are a few cases where the “FAST” was used in a non-trauma patient to assess the peritoneum:

Cirrhotic with abdominal pain and tenderness:

who was found to have ascites, and spontaneous bacterial peritonitis

Lower abdominal pain in pregnancy:

who was found to have hemoperitoneum from a ruptured ectopic pregnancy

Diffuse abdominal tenderness in a healthy ten-year-old:

who was found to have idiopathic seromas of the peritoneum, pleura, and pericardium!

Shortness of breath and abdominal distension:

which turned out to be massive abdominal abscesses

Diffuse abdominal tenderness and distension after hysteroscopy:

which was complicated by a bowel perforation; hence fecal material throughout the peritoneum

Take home points:

• Assessment of the peritoneum greatly aids medical and surgical diagnoses
• Fluid appears black (anechoic) on ultrasound. Very difficult to tell what TYPE of fluid by appearance alone
• Your clinical assessment must guide the differential diagnosis for your ultrasound findings

Here’s a quick trick:

When the Transeptic spray bottle won’t spray, it is often because the pump has become disconnected from the plastic tubing within the bottle. Instead of trying to fish it out with forceps, just turn the whole bottle upside-down.

Disinfectant Spray Bottle Troubleshooting from Sinai EM Ultrasound on Vimeo.

I hope this takes away just one small annoyance on your next shift. Unfortunately this will leave room for another, larger annoyance to occupy the space.

The transformation of lung tissue is termed hepatization: the lung tissue now appears similar to liver tissue.

This can be confusing in the lower lung fields, especially adjacent to the diaphragm because we use the mirror image artifact of the liver and spleen to indicate that lung tissue is normal. This mirrored, artifactual splenic or liver appearance could then be called pseudo-hepatization.

So, how do we differentiate hepatized lung versus pseudo-hepatized lung?

1. Never use a single image for your diagnosis, scan through area and convince yourself (then save a representative image or clip for QA).
2. Be systematic and scan down from the lung apices to the diaphragm.
3. Hunt for the diaphragm and use it as a dividing line between the lung and the abdominal organs.
4. Hepatized lung will often have a rim of fluid around it.

Image 1: Normal lung with visible diaphragm

Ultrasound of lung and spleen from Sinai EM Ultrasound on Vimeo.

Image 2: Normal lung with obscured diaphragm

Lung and Spleen Interface on ultrasound from Sinai EM Ultrasound on Vimeo.

Image 3: Hepatized lung at the lower lung field

The operator correctly noted the presence of a pleural effusion, and a bit of lung tissue can be seen towards the left side of the screen floating in fluid. In addition, there are THREE shadows evident, each from a different source. Can you spot them?

So let’s take these one at a time, with labels:

Shadow A

Is the easiest one. It extends almost from the first pixel at the top of the screen down to the far field. We can’t even see the characteristic echotexture of skin or subcutaneous tissue in the near field. There’s no contact here between the transducer and skin, possibly due to:

• the probe not touching at all
• clothing or an EKG lead getting in the way
• not enough gel (the novice’s answer to everything but sometimes still true)

Shadow B

The most interesting one of the bunch. Probably two major factors at work here. First, this section of diaphragm is a particularly bright reflector so it can create a shadow behind it due to the sheer amount of reflection occurring. Second, the density difference between the diaphragm and pleural effusion is creating a refraction artifact, often referred to as an edge artifact. Beams of sound which were roughly parallel as they struck this interface get bent at different angles based on whether they hit the dense diaphragm or the less dense fluid. The space in between the formerly tightly spaced beams is displayed as blackness, or the absence of returning echoes.

Shadow C

That’s a rib shadow. Did you know that ribs grow back if you remove them?

So there’s a bit of free fluid in Morison’s pouch. Can we make it more evident for the kids in the back row? The next image was taken with the patient in Trendelenberg position:

That made a pretty big difference.

In this sagittal view of the uterus the bladder is visible to the screen right; there is free fluid in the pelvis just to the left of this, and it can be seen to move with probe pressure on the lower abdomen.

Thus a diagnosis of ruptured ectopic pregnancy was strongly suspected, and the patient underwent emergency laparoscopy with the obstetrics service.

Check out our pelvic ultrasound and FAST tutorials for more details on performing these assessments.

First, just look at the still image and make your best guess. Then press play:

Did the large anechoic structure in the near field look like the bladder? Or was it the anechoic area in the far field? The operator was thrown off a bit by the complex echoes within the anterior structure. Remember the bladder is going to conform to the shape of the pelvis as it enlarges, so it will take on a characteristic square/trapezoidal shape in transverse orientation. But for the same reasons free fluid will take the same shape. Through the sweep from cranial to caudal you’ll notice two fluid collections; the anterior one seemed to have much more internal echo and debris. Don’t assume that’s the peritoneal fluid- urine can also look that way.

This was the sample obtained when a Foley catheter was inserted into the bladder:

This definitely looked (and smelled) better sonographically.

Here is the longitudinal (sagittal) view through the pelvis:

As usual, the sagittal view gives a better overview of the anatomy of the pelvis. When using the transverse view of the pelvis, you can miss small amounts of pelvic fluid more easily, confuse fluid collections for the bladder, and make incorrect assumptions. Just more support for the sonographic dogma of imaging everything in two planes.

Case resolution:

CT scan confirmed free intraperitoneal fluid but no free air or other signs of bowel perforation. The hemoglobin was stable through several assessments. The patient had an obvious urinary tract infection and renal failure on laboratory evaluation. Thus the fluid was thought to be new onset of ascites in the setting of urosepsis and mult-organ dysfunction.

Tips:

• Always image anatomy in at least two planes, and fan through anything that isn’t moving.
• Rethink assumptions when the anatomy doesn’t look as it should. For example, an oddly-shaped or highly echoic bladder may not be bladder at all, or it might just be an abnormal bladder.
• ALWAYS clean the machine and put it back where you found it when you are done.

I had to throw that in there, sorry.