Ultrasonographic assessment of acute abdominal pain

摘要

Abdominal ultrasound has made large advances in technology over the past 10 years becoming more portable and affordable to the practitioner. Clinicians used to rely solely on blood work, abdominocentesis and physical examination parameters as a rapidassessment of horses with abdominal pain pre- and post operatively. The addition of ultrasonography provides a noninvasive, real-time method to directly assess the viability and contractility of the gastrointestinal tract as well as providing the abilityto determine if an obstruction, peritonitis, haemoabdomen or uroabdomen is present.