What to expect from intestinal ultrasonography

Thanks to increasingly number imaging techniques, sonography is no longer indicated solely for the examination of the parenchymal organs of the abdominal cavity, but also for the small and large intestine. It has an important role in differential diagnosis of pain in the right hypogastrium, particularly when acute appendicitis is suspected. Sonography is also used in patients suspected from acute diverticulitis. Other intestinal wall pathologies can be well identified by sonography though the image is often non-specific, and such lesions are difficult to identify in terms of aetiology. A prominent position has endorectal sonography, an important method used mainly for diagnosis of rectal tumours. Unlike other techniques such as CT, it is useful in assessing tumorous infiltration of each of the intestinal wall layers or even the tumour's perirectal propagation. The method can be also used for examination of patients with perirectal abscesses or fistulae. However, endorectal sonography can be quite painful in this location, which is why in such cases we tend to prefer MR imaging.