Related Experiment Video
Updated: Dec 30, 2025
Author Spotlight: Assessing Surgical Frailty with Point-of-Care Ultrasound of Quadriceps Muscles
Published on: July 26, 2024
Reliability of skeletal muscle ultrasound in critically ill trauma patients
Luciana Vieira1,2, Lara Patrícia Bastos Rocha1,3, Sunita Mathur4
1Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciências e Tecnologias em Saúde, Universidade de Brasília - Brasília (DF), Brasil.
Objective:
To evaluate the safety and feasibility of the ultrasound assessment of quadriceps in the emergency setting. To assess the intra- and interrater reliability for the acquisition and analysis of ultrasound images of muscle thickness and echogenicity in critically ill trauma patients between health professionals with different levels of expertise.
Methods:
Diagnostic accuracy study. Two examiners (expert and novice) acquired ultrasound images from ten patients; an experienced, blinded analyst quantified the images. In a separate group of ten patients, two analysts (expert and novice) quantified quadriceps muscle thickness and echogenicity (square or trace method) from images acquired by one examiner.
Results:
Excellent reliability was found for image acquisition and analysis (intraclass correlation coefficients > 0.987; p < 0.001). The standard error of the measurement values ranged from 0.01 - 0.06cm for muscle thickness and from 0.75 - 2.04 arbitrary units for muscle echogenicity. The coefficients of variation were < 6% for thickness and echogenicity. The echogenicity values were higher when using the square technique than when using the tracing technique (p = 0.003).
Conclusion:
Ultrasound is safe, feasible, and reliable for muscle assessment in critically ill trauma patients, regardless of the assessor's level of expertise.
