POCUS lecture

Question 1

List some examples of ocular, lung, and cardiac pathologies that can be found with POCUS

Answer 1

Ocular: retinal/vitreous detachment, vitreous hemorrhage, foreign body (FB)
Lungs: pneumothorax, hemothorax, pleural effusion, pulmonary edema, pneumonia
Heart: congestive heart failure (CHF), pericardial effusion/tamponade, pulmonary embolus (PE), valve abnormalities (regurgitation, endocarditis), thrombus

Question 2

1) What does anechoic mean? Give an example
2) Define echogenicity

Answer 2

1) Not having or not producing echoes; black
Example: fluid
2) How bright or dark an object appears on the screen (dependent on the strength of echoes returning to the probe)

Question 3

Anechoic is a type of what?

Answer 3

Echogenicity

Question 4

1) What is the comparison term hyperechoic used to describe?
2) What is another term used to describe a bright structure?
3) Give examples

Answer 4

1) A tissue producing echoes that are brighter than surrounding tissues; whiter
2) “Echogenic”
3) Bone, stones, air

Question 5

1) What is the comparison term hypoechoic used to describe?

Answer 5

1) A tissue producing echoes that are darker than surrounding tissues; darker/ blacker

Question 6

1) What probe is good for superficial structures?
2) What probe is good for the heart?
3) What probe is good for the abdomen/ pelvis and lungs?

Answer 6

1) Linear
2) Sector or phased array (aka “cardiac”)
3) Curvilinear

Question 7

What increase and decrease the penetration of the US beam?

Answer 7

Depth adjustments

Question 8

What does gain do? What are the 3 types?

Answer 8

adjusts brightness of image
1) Over-gained: The image has too much gain applied to the image. Compared with image (C), echoes are found where there should be none.
2) Under-gained: The image is under-gained. The periphery of the image is very dark, potentially making an accurate diagnosis very difficult.
3) Correct: Appropriately gained.

Question 9

What does the M mode do?

Answer 9

The B-Mode image is displayed at the top of the screen. A green vertical line is seen over the B-Mode image. The area under the green line is displayed over time at the bottom of the screen (M-Mode).
The fetal heartbeat is seen at a depth of 3.6 cm and measured at 153 beats per minute.

Question 10

1) What does Color Doppler measure?
2) What is colored blue?

Answer 10

1) Color Doppler measures the frequency shift and displays it as color over the gray-scale image.
2) Note the color scale to the left of the ultrasound image; the blue color at the top of the scale indicates that flow toward the transducer is labeled blue.

Question 11

Scanning the ultrasound beam back and forth stacks what?

Answer 11

Multiple 2-D slices in a movie format and provides a sense of spatial orientation.

Question 12

What helps to gain a 3-D comprehension of structures?

Answer 12

Rotating the transducer 90° and scanning through the perpendicular plane

Question 13

The ________________ (white arrow) on the transducer corresponds with the _____________ on the screen (red arrow).

Answer 13

orientation marker; indicator

Question 14

Where should the transducer marker point?

Answer 14

Transducer marker aimed to the patient’s head (if sagittal view) or the patient’s right (if transverse view)

Question 15

What’s the difference between longitudinal and transverse scanning?

Answer 15

Longitudinal (long-axis) scanning = longitudinal to the organbeing scanned
Transverse (short-axis) scanning = transverse to the organbeing scanned (90° to a longitudinal view)

Question 16

1) What are artifacts?
2) Give an example

Answer 16

1) Images that do not accurately represent the anatomy in the reflected echo
2) Mirror-image artifact