Editorial: Use of Ultrasound in the Intensive Care Unit

For decades, ultrasound technology has been an integral part of the practice of radiology, obstetrics and cardiology. Emergency medicine clinicians later became proficient and adopted it to evaluate patients with abdominal trauma, shock, obstetric emergencies, pericardial tamponade and other life-threatening disorders. For years, critical care physicians in Europe and parts of Asia have seen the value of ultrasonography in daily practice, and proved that with proper training and experience it can almost as accessible, and far more helpful than the stethoscope. For example, an intensivist can evaluate a patient in shock noninvasively and in a few minutes for the presence of pneumothorax, pericardial tamponade and ventricular dysfunction, while predicting with reasonable accuracy the likelihood that the shock state will respond to fluid resuscitation.