Applied Evidence

Point-of-care ultrasound: Coming soon to primary care?

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Parasternal long-axis view of the heart in early diastole image
Abnormal parasternal long-axis view of the heart in diastole image

The potential applications of POCUS in family medicine are numerous and have been reviewed in several recent publications.12,13 In this article, we will review the evidence for the use of POCUS in 4 areas: the cardiovascular exam (FIGURES 1 and 2), the lung exam (FIGURES 3-6), the screening exam for AAAs (FIGURE 7), and the evaluation for DVT (FIGURES 8 and 9). (Obstetric and musculoskeletal applications have been sufficiently covered elsewhere.14-17) For all of these applications, POCUS is safe, accurate, and beneficial and can be performed with a relatively small amount of training by non-radiology specialists, including FPs (TABLEs 1 and 2).

Normal lung A lines image
Abnormal lung B lines image
Pleural effusion image
Pneumonia image
Abdominal aortic aneurysm image
Uncompressed normal common femoral vein image
Compressed normal common femoral vein image

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