Point-of-care ultrasound versus radiography

Julian Dobranowski, MD, is a professor and chair in the Department of Radiology at McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada, as well as chief of Diagnostic Imaging at Niagara Health System and chair of the steering and scientific committees of the Juravinski Research Institute.

What are the advantages of point-of-care ultrasonography (POCUS) over x-ray?

Julian Dobranowski, MD: There’s a variety of opportunities with POCUS. People look at POCUS as something novel, something new, but in fact, we’ve been using ultrasound for many, many years. The difference with POCUS is that the diagnosis can be done by the same physician who's' actually doing the examination and outside of the radiology department. POCUS is very portable, so you don’t have to transport the patient from wherever they are. In an acute care hospital setting, for example, in an intensive care unit, there’s a tremendous benefit for POCUS because the patient does not have to be transported.

As time goes by, we’re realizing that we can see a lot more with POCUS than we did before. There’s no radiation involved with POCUS, it can be repeated over and over again without any risk to the patient.

It is, however, user dependent, so whoever is doing POCUS has to be qualified. There has to be some quality assurance to make sure that whoever is doing the ultrasound knows what they’re looking at. This is not a simple task, but there are good courses available. There are good programs for people to get their training, and then they have to keep and maintain their competence once they start doing this.