1. EFFICACY OF FOCUSED ASSESSMENT SONOGRAPHY IN TRAUMA (FAST) IN PATIENTS WITH BLUNT ABDOMINAL TRAUMA

Krunalkumar Pancholi, Shreyas Patel, Rina Parikh, A.K.Saxena

ABSTRACT

Background & Objective: Unrecognized blunt abdominal injuries are frequently the cause of preventable death. Clinical examination is often inaccurate and therefore, reliable, accurate and repeatable bedside diagnostic test should be selected such as Sonography. This study was undertaken to assess the efficacy of Focused Assessment Sonography in Trauma (FAST) examination for detection of free fluid in abdomen in patients with Blunt Abdominal Trauma. Methods: This study is a prospective and observational study, conducted in the Department of Emergency Medicine, S.S.G. Hospital and Medical College, Baroda. All patients who were brought to us with definite or suspected blunt abdominal trauma brought during the study period from October 2014 to February 2016 were included. FAST with four standard views was performed using a low frequency curvilinear probe in all the patients and repeated after 30 minutes. Results were compared with CT, surgical findings, postmortem findings and the patient’s clinical status after 24 hours of observation. Results: Total of 256 patients were included in our study and the majority of them were males and the most common cause of injury was a Road Traffic Accident. The sensitivity and specificity of FAST were 97.6% and 100%, respectively, with an accuracy of 99.2%. Conclusion: Our study shows that the FAST is a highly sensitive, specific, reliable and accurate initial bedside investigation in patients with blunt abdominal trauma, which can be performed rapidly even in haemodynamically unstable patients, making it a very useful tool in the Emergency Department.

Key-words: Blunt Abdominal Trauma, Emergency Department, FAST.

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