[Focused Abdominal Ultrasound in Emergency, Perioperative and Intensive Care Medicine]

The rising impact of perioperative sonography is mainly based on mobile high quality ultrasound systems. Relevant bleedings or functional limitations of the abdomen are easy to identify with sonography. The FAST-Concept can be the first access to continue proceedings in ultrasound examination of the abdomen. This paper demonstrates some important ultrasound examinations of the abdomen. The clinical main issues are traumatic and atraumatic bleedings of heart, liver and spleen with haemodynamic instability and functional limitations of abdominal organs like bile cystitis, gastrointestinal passage disability and obstructive uropathy. Just outside of the normal working time the ultrasound experts are often not promptly available. The demonstrated techniques allow in acute medicine to make a diagnosis and to decide fast in critical situations. Perspective in view of the many benefits and possibilities, point-of-care ultrasound will be a high-ranking skill in the field of anaesthesia, emergency medicine or intensive care.