[Gynecologic ultrasound in the acute abdomen--the predominant reasons]

In gynecological settings, a sensible approach to diagnosing acute abdomen or lower abdominal pain is to classify the cases into positive pregnancy tests (if the patient is known to be pregnant) and negative pregnancy tests (or if the patient is postmenopausal). Various forms of ectopic pregnancy and abortion are associated with early pregnancy. Once a pregnancy has been excluded, diagnostics should focus on pain in conjunction with adnexal findings, adnexal torsions, fibroids and infections. Sonography for evaluating morphology and blood circulation to organs and structures has a high diagnostic value, but should always be judged together with medical history, clinical, laboratory and any other imaging findings. Indeed, abdominal pain requires intensive interdisciplinary collaboration. Not rarely, there are several relevant causes of lower abdominal pain.