Focused Assessment with Sonography for Trauma

The term Focused Assessment with Sonography for Trauma ( FAST) describes a standardized sonographic examination of the abdomen and pelvis and gear in the expansion and the chest cavity when severely injured patients in the emergency room. The FAST examination is regularly during the initial phase of the investigation of multiple trauma to application.

The aim of the FAST study of emergency room patients is the detection of free fluid as a sign of injury to organs and blood vessels of the abdominal cavity and therefore, where appropriate, the decision to immediate life-saving operations. Your sensitivity and specificity in prospective studies amounted to almost 100%. Until the mid- 1990s, the so-called diagnostic peritoneal lavage (flushing the abdominal cavity) was used for the assessment of free fluid in the abdominal cavity, especially in the Anglo-Saxon catchment area. In the mid 1990s, there were large discrepancies, which method is preferable. Sonography could only establish the late 1990s, finally in the emergency diagnosis and provides since then represents a vital research