You Can See RV Dilation As Well As Cardiology

June 14, 2017

Yes, you can see RV dilation!
Clay Smith
Of 84 focused cardiac ultrasounds by 26 different physicians at the bedside, 21 of which were residents, there was 89% agreement (kappa 0.68) with a blinded reviewing cardiologist for RV dilation.  There were a few issues with this study.  It was small with wide confidence intervals and a single cardiologist reviewed the ED bedside images vs a comprehensive cardiac echo, which may have been a suboptimal reference standard.

Spoon Feed
Bedside echo that answers a specific question, in this case – is the RV dilated or not – may be reliably performed, even by novice sonographers in the ED.

Source
Emergency Physicians Are Able to Detect Right Ventricular Dilation with Good Agreement Compared to Cardiology.  Acad Emerg Med. 2017 Apr 28. doi: 10.1111/acem.13210. [Epub ahead of print]

Peer Reviewed by Thomas Davis.