Diagnostic value of emergency ultrasonography of the abdomen

We evaluated the diagnostic usefulness of abdominal ultrasound performed by trained MDs at a general internal medicine clinic in 104 patients with acute abdominal problems. In 30% (31 patients) sonography was diagnostic or was able to guide the further evaluation of the patient. Most diagnoses concerned problems of the nephrologic, urologic or hepatobiliary systems. In 70% (73 patients) sonography was normal or showed unimportant findings; none of these patients had a final diagnosis which should have been detected by sonography. Only 10 of these 73 patients had a diagnosis which needed specific treatment (urinary tract infection n = 5, peptic ulcer disease n = 3, carcinoma of the colon n = 2). In conclusion, sonography proved to be a very useful, highly diagnostic and reliable method even when performed by non-radiologists.