Podcast 569:  The eFAST Exam

<p><strong>Contributor: Aaron Lessen, MD</strong></p> <p><strong>Educational Pearls:</strong><span style= "font-weight: 400;">.  </span></p> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Focused assessment with Sonography for Trauma (FAST) exam and the extended-FAST (eFAST) are essential components of current trauma care and evaluation</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">There has been an accumulation of research to provide an estimate of effectiveness of identifying certain injuries with ultrasound:</span></li> <li style="list-style: none; display: inline"> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">For identifying a pneumothorax, the sensitivity ~70% and specificity ~99%.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">For pericardial effusions, sensitivity 90% and specificity ~ 94%.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">For hemoperitoneum, sensitivity ~74% and the specificity ~98%.</span></li> </ul> </li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">While ultrasound is excellent for identifying many injuries, it may not be adequate alone to rule out serious injuries if the clinical suspicion is high based on these pooled studies</span></li> </ul> <p><strong>References</strong></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Netherton S, Milenkovic V, Taylor M, Davis PJ. Diagnostic accuracy of eFAST in the trauma patient: a systematic review and meta-analysis.</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">CJEM</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. 2019;21(6):727‐738. doi:10.1017/cem.2019.381</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Summarized by Jackson Roos, MS4 | Edited by Erik Verzemnieks, MD</span></em></span></p> <p><br /> <br /></p>