Point-of-care Ultrasound as a Useful Tool for Assessment of Undifferentiated Dyspnea in Rapid Response Team Consultation

Objective The purpose of this study is to evaluate the role of point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) in assessment of patients with dyspnea in Rapid Response Team (RRT) consultation.53 patients were included and their pre-POCUS, post-POCUS and final diagnoses were documented. Compared with pre-POCUS diagnoses, the accuracy of post-POCUS diagnoses increased significantly from 37.7% up to 79.2%, P＜0.01( final diagnoses as golden standard). When stratified by etiology, we can see that POCUS improved the diagnostic sensitivity and specificity in most of the diseases. But still there were 11 patients in whom POCUS fail to diagnose. And in those POCUS-fail group the mortality seemed higher than in POCUS achieved group.In conclusion POCUS is a convenient and useful diagnostic tool which can improve the diagnostic accuracy of patients with sudden onset of dyspnea in RRT consultation.

Published data on earthquake-associated peripheral nerve injury is very limited. Ultrasonography has been proven to be efifcient in the clinic to diagnose peripheral nerve injury. The aim of this study was to assess the role of ultrasound in the evaluation of persistent peripheral nerve injuries 1 year after the Wenchuan earthquake. Thirty-four patients with persistent clinical symptoms and neurologic signs of impaired nerve function were evaluated with sonography prior to surgi-cal repair. Among 34 patients, ultrasonography showed that 48 peripheral nerves were entrapped, and 11 peripheral nerves were disrupted. There was one case of misdiagnosis on ultrasonogra-phy. The concordance rate of ultrasonographic ifndings with those of surgical ifndings was 98%. A total of 48 involved nerves underwent neurolysis and the symptoms resolved. Only ifve nerves had scar tissue entrapment. Preoperative and postoperative clinical and ultrasonographic results were concordant, which veriifed that ultrasonography is useful for preoperative diagnosis and postoperative evaluation of injured peripheral nerves.

Image-guided high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) has been used for more than ten years, primarily in the treatment of liver and prostate cancers. HIFU has the advantages of precise cancer ablation and excel ent protection of healthy tissue. Breast cancer is a common cancer in women. HIFU therapy, in combination with other therapies, has the potential to improve both oncologic and cosmetic outcomes for breast cancer patients by providing a curative therapy that conserves mammary shape. Currently, HIFU therapy is not commonly used in breast cancer treatment, and efforts to promote the application of HIFU is expected. In this article, we compare different image-guided models for HIFU and reviewed the status, drawbacks, and potential of HIFU therapy for breast cancer.