[Evaluation of radiologic and echosonographic examinations in the detection and confirmation of pleural effusions]

In everyday practice, the attention of the radiologists was driven by patients who were admitted for clinical examination for different reasons and in whom pleural effusion was diagnosed by ultrasonography but not on standard radiograms, i.e. patients with strongly suspected pleural effusion standard radiograms could not reveal. Investigations from different aspects and the use of several conventional roentgenological methods were usually sufficient since now in diagnosing most of the cases. This, however, includes prolonged examinations and higher radiation doses received both by patients and by medical staff; besides, all this is not always enough for the effusion to be proven. What is more important, however, is the fact that critical general status of a patient often makes such thorough examination impossible, especially in additional and forced positions. The aim of the authors was to determine, on the basis of its use in everyday practice, to which extent ultrasonography, being a new diagnostic method, can become a routine method and contribute to rationalization of radiodiagnostics for pleural effusions as well as to determine diagnostic algorithm for the detection and confirmation especially of small and smaller pleural effusions.