Sonographic investigation in the diagnosis of intrasplenic fluid collections.

The authors report about the diagnosis of 55 patients for whom cyst-like lesion sites or predominantly anechoic lesions were diagnosed by means of sonography of the spleen. Sonographic analysis included interventional sonography with fluid aspiration in accordance with diagnostic and therapeutic guidelines (n = 19), catheter drainage (n = 3), B-mode pulsed Doppler-Ultrasound, and short-term follow-up examinations. The final diagnoses were splenic cysts (n = 25), splenic ruptures (n = 10), splenic infarctions (n = 12), splenic abscesses (n = 7) and splenic metastasis (n = 1). Because of the ultrasound findings in diagnosis and during the follow-up observations, 15 patients underwent splenectomy. Special attention is drawn to the clinical relevance of these procedures for diagnosis of splenic liquid masses.