[Use of pocket-sized ultrasound in internal medicine (hospitalist) practice: Feedback and perspectives]

Point of care ultrasound (POCUS) is routinely used by intensivists and emergency physicians for many years. Its interest is not arguable any more for these specialists, despite the large variety of diseases they care. Hospitalists and internists also should find some interest in POCUS, which convenience and wide range of indications responds well to the variety of their practice. However, it is still not widely used in internal medicine departments.

We here report our experience of using a pocket-sized ultrasound device in a French internal medicine department. The device used was a Vscan Dual Probe, GE, whose two probes and presets allow for cardiac, abdominal, pulmonary, obstetric, vascular, pulmonary, and superficial soft tissue exploration. One physician of the ward received a course for POCUS that was initially dedicated for emergency physicians. This study reports on the results of the examinations made between January and September 2015. For each examination performed, clinical usefulness was assessed at the time of patient discharge, by two independent physicians who reviewed the clinical course and the results of conventional imaging and rated their evaluation on a Likert scale.

One hundred and four examinations were evaluated. The mean duration of the ultrasound examination was 9±5minutes. The POCUS conclusions were corrected by disease course or the results of conventional imaging in 10 (9.6%) cases. The presets of the device: heart, soft tissue, lung, abdomen and vascular were used respectively in 32, 30, 21, 12 and 5% of the examinations. The main indications of POCUS examination were for identification of pleural, pericardial or peritoneal effusion, and to assess the central venous pressure by inferior vena cava examination. Eighteen examinations were performed for puncture of effusion. The retrospectively evaluated clinical benefit was clearly demonstrated in 78% of cases. The agreement between the two blinded assessors was good (kappa coefficient at 0.82).

Pocket-sized ultrasound device could be used in internal medicine wards. However, its limited performance compared to more sophisticated echography limits the possible explorations and their reliability, which encourages caution and makes critical the question of the initial training of doctors and medical students.