How can the use of lung ultrasound in cardiac arrest make ultrasound a holistic discipline. The example of the SESAME-protocol.

Abstract

The most critical application of critical ultrasound - cardiac arrest - is the opportunity for technical considerations. The necessity to immediately detect reversible causes is integrated in the concept of holistic ultrasound. Holistic ultrasound is defined as a discipline where each element interacts with the others, and where the understanding of each of them allows understanding the whole. A narrow machine (not necessarily a laptop), a fast start-on time, a simple keyboard highlighting three useful buttons, a universal microconvex probe able to immediately detect pneumothorax, then deep venous thrombosis, then abdominal bleeding, then pericardial tamponade, then cardiac anomalies will allow a fast protocol. The concept of holistic ultrasound is particularly on focus in the first step done at the lung (search for pneumothorax and clearance for fluid therapy), since the best image is obtained with the simplest equipment devoid of traditional facilities (image filtering, harmonics, time lag, Doppler...). The same simple gray-scale equipment is used for the other steps, all what is needed is to see the real-time image of what is facing the probe: the very principle of visual medicine. The same approach can be used with no change, just more quietly, for many less urgent settings.

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