An overview of musculoskeletal ultrasound – A thirteen years experience in Pakistan

Objective

(1) To provide an overview on 13 years experience on patients with musculoskeletal disorders in Pakistan. (2) To assess accuracy of ultrasound in musculoskeletal disorders. (3) To determine percentage of different regional pathologies referred for musculoskeletal ultrasound.

Material and methods

We scanned 25,437 patients coming from all over Pakistan including 18,715 males and 6722 females from 1 month to 85 years of age.

We used two ultrasound equipments with a multi-frequency (6–14 MHz) linear probe to perform studies in patients with possible musculoskeletal system problems.

Results

All patients with different joint or specific problems of musculoskeletal system were scanned, the total number of patients of any specific disorder was calculated and the accuracy of ultrasound was compared with MRI in a given percentage of patients.

Discussion

In all musculoskeletal disorders ultrasound was found to be accurate in about 84.8%. It was 83.5% accurate in the cases which went for MRI, its accuracy with other lab tests was 81.2% and that with surgery was 93.3%.

Conclusion

Musculoskeletal ultrasound is a very useful tool in almost all disorders of musculoskeletal system and shall be a necessary tool of a physicians, specially a family physician, orthopedic surgeon, physiotherapist and rheumatologist.