Background: Intraoperative ultrasound is a routine procedure in abdominal surgery. Not only detection of focal lesions but also perfusion and elasticity analyses using color-coded Doppler sonography, contrast-enhanced ultrasound and elastography enable highly sensitive and highly specific diagnostics, especially in oncological surgery.
Objective: This article provides an overview on current techniques of intraoperative ultrasound and gives an outlook on future possibilities and applications.
Material and methods: Literature-based presentation of evidence-based intraoperative ultrasound, discussion of current basic research and expert recommendations.
Results: Modern intraoperative ultrasound is a highly efficient technique for detection and characterization of focal space-occupying lesions in surgery of benign and malignant diseases.
Conclusion: Intraoperative ultrasound is a highly sensitive and specific diagnostic tool, providing real-time diagnostics with a manageable amount of technical equipment. Thus, preoperative diagnostics can be refined, partly resulting in a modification of intraoperative treatment management. Future developments in the fields of digital image fusion with preoperative sectional imaging, optical guidance of surgical instruments and molecular targeted tumor therapy will increase the importance of intraoperative sonography even more.
Keywords: Color-coded Doppler sonography; Contrast agent; Elastography; Intraoperative imaging; Liver surgery.