By Michael Prats on 02/01/21 04:00 AM
Look - we're sorry. We know you are sick of COVID-19, but when this came across our desk we knew it was important. So far we know that point-of-care lung ultrasound is accurate for the diagnosis and even that extent of sonographic findings can correlate with the severity of disease. Now we ask - could it provide a superior diagnostic strategy to even our beloved PCR?? https://www.ultrasoundgel.org/105 https://www.annemergmed.com/article/S0196-0644(20)31269-5/fulltext
By Michael Prats on 11/09/20 04:00 AM
Ultrasound of the bowel is a relatively new application for POCUS users. It came into the spotlight proving itself with small bowel obstruction, but now we are slowly peristalsing even further down the colon of indications. You may be surprised to find that you can actually see diverticulitis on ultrasound, but it turns out it's not that hard! The question is - how reliable are the sonographic findings? This study is one of the largest to compare POCUS to CT to investigate this important application. https://www.ultrasoundgel.org/101 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32653332/
By Michael Prats on 09/14/20 04:00 AM
We haven't discussed COVID-19 for a long time, despite the explosion of POCUS articles on how ultrasound can be used during this pandemic. Many of the articles have focused on the accuracy of POCUS for making the diagnosis, or comparing the ultrasound findings to those on CT. These are helpful, but now what we really want are studies that help establish that POCUS is helping with delivering patient care - either diagnostically or prognostically. This article seems to take the first step in this direction by examining the prognostic utility of lung ultrasound in this disease. https://www.ultrasoundgel.org/98 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32728966/