[Value of lung ultrasound in emergency and intensive care medicine].

Lung ultrasound has traditionally been limited to evaluation of pleural effusion and as guidance for thoracocentesis. However, in recent years, thoracic ultrasound became an increasingly valuable diagnostic tool in emergency and intensive care medicine. The relative easy use of bedside examination made chest ultrasonography diagnostic valuable additional tool to be used in any clinical acute context. Various pulmonary diseases like pleural effusion, pulmonary-venous congestion und edema, pneumonia and pneumothorax can be detected very fast under emergency conditions. © Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.