Utility of Ultrasound in Evaluation of Patients with Abdominal Pain

Abdominal pain is a common cause of patients visit to healthcare facilities. Pain abdomen may be due to causes such as acid peptic disease, ureteric calculus, cholecystitis, pancreatitis and acute appendicitis. History and physical examination narrows the differential diagnoses. In some of the patients, further evaluation with imaging modalities is done. Among the different imaging modalities, ultrasound is often the first, and many times the only imaging modality needed to arrive at diagnosis. Ultrasound is widely available, cost-effective and there is no ionizing radiation. So, ultrasound is preferred over CT as initial imaging modality. In this study we studied the diagnostic yield of ultrasound of abdomen and pelvis in 104 consecutive patients with complaints of pain abdomen referred for ultrasound in the months of December 2018 and January 2019 at Vishnupriyadharshini scans, Theni. Spectrum of diagnosis in our study includes ureteric calculus (most common 12 %) followed by cholelithiasis (11 %) and mesenteric lymphadenitis (6 %), acute pancreatitis, acute appendicitis (3 %), ileocecitis, small bowel obstruction, acute pyelonephritis, ovarian cyst, scar endometriosis, ectopic gestation, etc.