The benefits of emergency ultrasound include timely identification of patients with a leaking AAA, allowing optimal appropriate management to be instituted, and also the identification of asymptomatic AAA to enable a planned approach to their future management. The technique is learned quickly [8].
Benefits appear considerable. The work of Sierzenski (2004) [9] indicates that emergency physician ultrasound decreases the time to diagnosis in ruptured AAA. The mean time of 180 minutes was reduced to 80 minutes.
In addition, the time to CT scan is also reduced, as is the time to operative repair.