I would like to become more effective and comfortable in scanning the lungs- sometimes clients are looking specifically for that when they schedule an echo or thoracic ultrasound. They may suspect a mass, or maybe trying to R/O cardiac vs respiratory, or wanting to monitor a respiratory condition. Is there a general protocol for effective thoracic scanning? best probe? I have found myself somewhat winging it but I would rather be able to follow an SDEP type format and boom boom I know I have imaged what I need to:)
I would like to become more effective and comfortable in scanning the lungs- sometimes clients are looking specifically for that when they schedule an echo or thoracic ultrasound. They may suspect a mass, or maybe trying to R/O cardiac vs respiratory, or wanting to monitor a respiratory condition. Is there a general protocol for effective thoracic scanning? best probe? I have found myself somewhat winging it but I would rather be able to follow an SDEP type format and boom boom I know I have imaged what I need to:)
Comments
Look at the rads first. If
Look at the rads first. If the lesion is within +/- 1 cm of the body wall or the diaphragm use that intercostal space or abdominal transdiaphragmatic approach to identify the lesion. Sedating will help the push to get to the deeper lesions or the ones further from the wall or doaphragm. If adjacent to the heart then you the sdep echo approach using the heart as an acoustic window. Here is some help from my approach to lung lesions from the interventional ultrasound list on sonopath: compression technique for thoracic fna.
http://sonopath.com/resources/interventional-procedures