• Eric Piette, Raoul Daoust, and André Denault.
• Department of Emergency Medicine, Hôpital du Sacré-Coeur de Montréal, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada. eric.piette@umontreal.ca
• Curr Opin Anaesthesiol. 2013 Feb 1;26(1):20-30.

Purpose Of ReviewRecent advances were made in the field of point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS). Thoracic and lung ultrasound have become a rapid and accurate method of diagnosis of hypoxic diseases. The purpose of this article is to review the recent literature on POCUS, emphasizing on its use in the operating room.Recent FindingsMany international critical care societies published guidelines on the use of ultrasound in the installation of central venous access. More recently, evidenced-based guidelines on the use of POC lung ultrasound were published. Lung ultrasound has shown its superiority over conventional chest radiography in the diagnosis of many disorders of significant importance in anesthesiology, particularly the pneumothorax.SummaryPOC thoracic and lung ultrasound is used in many critical medicine fields. The aim of this review is to describe the basic lung ultrasound technique and the knowledge required in order to diagnose and treat the hypoxic patient. Emphasis is on disorder such as pleural effusion, alveolar interstitial disease, as well as pneumothorax, which is of particular importance in the field of anesthesiology.

This article appears in the collection: How useful is point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) for diagnosing pneumothorax and other chest pathology?.

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