Point-of-care ultrasonography may help diagnose abscesses and cellulitis, finds study

USA: Point-of-care ultrasonography has good diagnostic accuracy for the differentiation of abscesses from cellulitis, suggests a recent study in the journal Annals of Emergency Medicine. This, in turn, leads to correct change in management in about 10% of the cases.

Skin and soft tissue infections are common presentations in the emergency department. Previous studies have shown clinical examination alone to be unreliable in distinguishing between cellulitis and abscesses. A distinction between the two is important as each of them require difference treatments. Point-of-care ultrasonography has been increasingly studied as a tool to improve the diagnostic accuracy for these skin and soft tissue infections.

The primary objective of this systematic review by Michael Gottlieb, Department of Emergency Medicine, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL, and colleagues, to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of point-of-care ultrasonography for abscesses. Subgroup analyses are performed for adult versus pediatric patients and high suspicion versus clinically unclear cases. Secondary objectives include the percentage of correct versus incorrect changes in management and reduction in treatment failures because of point-of-care ultrasonography.