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The role of US examination in the management of acute abdomen

Acute abdomen is a medical emergency, in which there is sudden and severe pain in abdomen of recent onset with accompanying signs and symptoms that focus on an abdominal involvement. It can represent a wide spectrum of conditions, ranging from a benign and self-limiting disease to a surgical emergen...

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Autores principales: Mazzei, Maria Antonietta, Guerrini, Susanna, Cioffi Squitieri, Nevada, Cagini, Lucio, Macarini, Luca, Coppolino, Francesco, Giganti, Melchiore, Volterrani, Luca
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3711740/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23902801
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/2036-7902-5-S1-S6
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author Mazzei, Maria Antonietta
Guerrini, Susanna
Cioffi Squitieri, Nevada
Cagini, Lucio
Macarini, Luca
Coppolino, Francesco
Giganti, Melchiore
Volterrani, Luca
author_facet Mazzei, Maria Antonietta
Guerrini, Susanna
Cioffi Squitieri, Nevada
Cagini, Lucio
Macarini, Luca
Coppolino, Francesco
Giganti, Melchiore
Volterrani, Luca
author_sort Mazzei, Maria Antonietta
collection PubMed
description Acute abdomen is a medical emergency, in which there is sudden and severe pain in abdomen of recent onset with accompanying signs and symptoms that focus on an abdominal involvement. It can represent a wide spectrum of conditions, ranging from a benign and self-limiting disease to a surgical emergency. Nevertheless, only one quarter of patients who have previously been classified with an acute abdomen actually receive surgical treatment, so the clinical dilemma is if the patients need surgical treatment or not and, furthermore, in which cases the surgical option needs to be urgently adopted. Due to this reason a thorough and logical approach to the diagnosis of abdominal pain is necessary. Some Authors assert that the location of pain is a useful starting point and will guide a further evaluation. However some causes are more frequent in the paediatric population (like appendicitis or adenomesenteritis) or are strictly related to the gender (i.e. gynaechologic causes). It is also important to consider special populations such as the elderly or oncologic patients, who may present with atypical symptoms of a disease. These considerations also reflect a different diagnostic approach. Today, surely the integrated imaging, and in particular the use of multidetector Computed Tomography (MDCT) has revolutionised the clinical approach to this condition, simplyfing the diagnosis but burdening the radiologists with the problems related to the clinical management. However although CT emerging as a modality of choice for evaluation of the acute abdomen, ultrasonography (US) remains the primary imaging technique in the majority of cases, especially in young and female patients, when the limitation of the radiation exposure should be mandatory, limiting the use of CT in cases of nondiagnostic US and in all cases where there is a discrepancy between the clinical symptoms and negative imaging at US.
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spelling pubmed-37117402013-07-17 The role of US examination in the management of acute abdomen Mazzei, Maria Antonietta Guerrini, Susanna Cioffi Squitieri, Nevada Cagini, Lucio Macarini, Luca Coppolino, Francesco Giganti, Melchiore Volterrani, Luca Crit Ultrasound J Research Acute abdomen is a medical emergency, in which there is sudden and severe pain in abdomen of recent onset with accompanying signs and symptoms that focus on an abdominal involvement. It can represent a wide spectrum of conditions, ranging from a benign and self-limiting disease to a surgical emergency. Nevertheless, only one quarter of patients who have previously been classified with an acute abdomen actually receive surgical treatment, so the clinical dilemma is if the patients need surgical treatment or not and, furthermore, in which cases the surgical option needs to be urgently adopted. Due to this reason a thorough and logical approach to the diagnosis of abdominal pain is necessary. Some Authors assert that the location of pain is a useful starting point and will guide a further evaluation. However some causes are more frequent in the paediatric population (like appendicitis or adenomesenteritis) or are strictly related to the gender (i.e. gynaechologic causes). It is also important to consider special populations such as the elderly or oncologic patients, who may present with atypical symptoms of a disease. These considerations also reflect a different diagnostic approach. Today, surely the integrated imaging, and in particular the use of multidetector Computed Tomography (MDCT) has revolutionised the clinical approach to this condition, simplyfing the diagnosis but burdening the radiologists with the problems related to the clinical management. However although CT emerging as a modality of choice for evaluation of the acute abdomen, ultrasonography (US) remains the primary imaging technique in the majority of cases, especially in young and female patients, when the limitation of the radiation exposure should be mandatory, limiting the use of CT in cases of nondiagnostic US and in all cases where there is a discrepancy between the clinical symptoms and negative imaging at US. Springer 2013-07-15 /pmc/articles/PMC3711740/ /pubmed/23902801 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/2036-7902-5-S1-S6 Text en Copyright ©2013 Mazzei et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research
Mazzei, Maria Antonietta
Guerrini, Susanna
Cioffi Squitieri, Nevada
Cagini, Lucio
Macarini, Luca
Coppolino, Francesco
Giganti, Melchiore
Volterrani, Luca
The role of US examination in the management of acute abdomen
title The role of US examination in the management of acute abdomen
title_full The role of US examination in the management of acute abdomen
title_fullStr The role of US examination in the management of acute abdomen
title_full_unstemmed The role of US examination in the management of acute abdomen
title_short The role of US examination in the management of acute abdomen
title_sort role of us examination in the management of acute abdomen
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3711740/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23902801
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/2036-7902-5-S1-S6
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