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Emergency contrast-enhanced ultrasonography for pancreatic injuries in blunt abdominal trauma

  • Emergency Radiology
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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to retrospectively investigate the application of emergency contrast-enhanced ultrasonography (CEUS) in blunt pancreatic trauma.

Materials and methods

Twenty-two consecutive patients with blunt pancreatic trauma were examined using CEUS from March 2007 to June 2012. The findings of CEUS were compared with those of contrast-enhanced computed tomography scans at level-1 diagnostic tests.

Results

Out of the 22 patients, 21 were diagnosed with blunt pancreatic injury using CEUS, including 8 patients with lesions in the neck of pancreas, 9 in the body, 3 in the tail and 1 in the head. The injury sites appeared as anechoic and/or hypoechoic perfusion defect regions with irregular borders in parenchyma and capsule on CEUS images. The lesion sizes measured by CEUS were 1.88 ± 0.81 cm, which were consistent with the 1.93 ± 0.77 cm measured by CT (p > 0.05). Using CT as a reference standard, the detection rate of CEUS in blunt pancreatic trauma was 95.5 % (21/22).

Conclusions

CEUS findings can be used to provide a reliable diagnosis for blunt pancreatic trauma. CEUS is thus promising in the assessment of blunt pancreatic trauma, especially in institutions where emergency CEUS is used as an initial diagnostic instrument.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to express our gratitude to the Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 81071279) and the Public Welfare Scientific Research Project of the Chinese Ministry of Health (Grant No. 201302017) for their financial supports for this project.

Conflict of interest

Faqin Lv, Jie Tang, Yukun Luo, Yongkang Nie, Tong Liang, Ziyu Jiao, Zhihong Zhu, Tanshi Li declare no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ultrasound, Chinese People’s Liberation Army General Hospital, 28 Fuxing Road, 100853, Bei**g, China

    Faqin Lv, Jie Tang, Yukun Luo & Ziyu Jiao

  2. Department of Radiology, Chinese People’s Liberation Army General Hospital, Bei**g, China

    Yongkang Nie

  3. Department of Ultrasound, Foshan Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Foshan, China

    Tong Liang

  4. Department of Emergency, Chinese People’s Liberation Army General Hospital, Bei**g, China

    Zhihong Zhu & Tanshi Li

Authors
  1. Faqin Lv
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  2. Jie Tang
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  3. Yukun Luo
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  4. Yongkang Nie
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  5. Tong Liang
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  8. Tanshi Li
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Correspondence to Jie Tang.

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Lv, F., Tang, J., Luo, Y. et al. Emergency contrast-enhanced ultrasonography for pancreatic injuries in blunt abdominal trauma. Radiol med 119, 920–927 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11547-014-0410-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11547-014-0410-3

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