F. Mojoli, S. Mongodi

ICU Management & Practice. 2017;17(3):186-9.

In the last years, ultrasound (US) became an essential tool in the hands of the intensivist and is now recommended both for procedural guidance and diagnostic purposes. Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) is an immediately available and repeatable, non-irradiating bedside tool integrating the clinical examination.

While echocardiography has a longer history in critical care and remains the most frequently used technique (Zieleskiewicz et al. 2015), recent years were characterised by a growing interest in the fields of lung and diaphragm US. The evolution and combination of these three US techniques may integrate the classical approach to mechanically ventilated patients, both for monitoring (Bouhemad et al. 2015) and diagnostic purposes (Riviello et al. 2016), finally contributing to the titration of mechanical ventilation (Luecke et al. 2012) and to the management of respiratory disease.

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