Is there anything ultrasound can’t do? Trauma, vascular access, undifferentiated abdominal pain – and another nice case report for vomiting in children.
These authors are using ultrasound in the projectile-vomiting infant looking at the pylorus, and, after finding a normal pylorus, they scan the rest of the abdomen. Lo and behold, they identify intussusception. I am not entirely certain I would be able to well-identify the pylorus, but I can definitely see potentially noting the intussusception. The authors include several nice images as teaching points.
As the barriers to routine ultrasound use in the ER decrease, hopefully we will all become more facile with using it in many more clinical situations.
“Use of Emergency Ultrasound in the Diagnostic Evaluation of an Infant With Vomiting”
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21975504