Patterns of fluid accumulation on screening ultrasonography for blunt abdominal trauma: comparison with site of injury.

The objectives of this study were to define where fluid accumulation is shown on screening ultrasonography after blunt abdominal trauma and to determine how fluid accumulation patterns are associated with the site of injury. From 1994 to 1998, 2,693 screening examinations for blunt abdominal trauma were performed, in which 7 regions were examined for fluid. On the basis of a preliminary analysis of patients with solitary injuries, all 194 patients with sonographically detected fluid were grouped by fluid accumulation pattern. Fluid patterns were compared with sites of injury. The patterns differed between hepatic and splenic injuries. Fluid in the left upper quadrant, in both upper quadrants, or diffusely distributed suggested splenic injury, whereas fluid in the right upper quadrant or the right upper quadrant and lower recesses suggested hepatic injury (P < .0001). Fluid accumulation was random after enteric injury. Patients with extraperitoneal injury had no fluid or had fluid focally at the injury site. The ability to predict the injury site on the basis of fluid patterns should expedite treatment of hemodynamically unstable patients with blunt abdominal trauma.