SBO: Seize Back Onus – Focus on POCUS.

Image credit: Pexels

Authors: Ahmed Mamdouh Taha Mostafa, MD; Kevin C. Welch, DO; and Max Cooper, MD RDMS

Originally published: Common Sense
January/February 2021

Case
A 76-year-old female with a past medical history of hypertension, obstructive sleep apnea, diverticulitis, fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis, depression, and renal cell carcinoma status post remote nephrectomy who presented to our ED with four days of intermittent, diffuse, crampy abdominal pain associated with nausea and non-bloody, non-bilious emesis, hiccoughs, and inability to tolerate PO.

On examination, vital signs were temperature of 98.3º F, pulse of 108 bpm, respiratory rate of 15, blood pressure 146/91 and oxygen saturation of 97% on room air. Significant findings on examination were mild, diffuse tenderness over the abdomen on palpation, which was soft, positive for bowel sounds on auscultation. Bedside ultrasound performed showed keyboard sign - plicae circularis on the interior aspect of the jejunal wall, “to-and-fro” motion, and dilated bowel loops raising suspicion for small bowel obstruction (SBO), which was confirmed by CT.

Point-of-Care Ultrasound

Image Credit: Flickr

Author: Aaron C. Tyagi, MD
Vice-Chair, RSA Social Media Committee
Originally Published: Common Sense March/April 2017

It is the start of your shift. You are just starting to get settled in after taking sign-out, when one of the nurses comes over and says he needs a physician in room 22 immediately!

You enter the room to find a patient in obvious distress, diaphoretic, tachypnic, sitting straight up in the bed. You immediately assess his ABCs. He exhibits severe dyspnea but his airway is intact. He has a generous amount of soft-tissue for a neck, so it is difficult to assess his trachea. You move on to his breath sounds. They are somewhat decreased on the right compared to the left, but there are some audible breath sounds on the right — though they may be transmitted sounds. No adventitious sounds. Peripheral pulses are palpable and fast. Vital signs show a heart rate of 112, a respiratory rate of 29, blood pressure in the 140s/90s, and a SpO2 of 94% on room air.