US vs CT

US vs CT

Multi-slice CT is increasingly replacing ultrasonography (US) for the evaluation of patients with acute abdominal pain
CT has major advantages over US: it is extremely fast and its time burden is often less than that of a US examination .
CT is not disturbed by gas and bone, while obesity is even an advantage.
Most of all, CT is not operator-dependent and can be reviewed by others, even at a distance.
With all these advantages, it is not surprising that US is losing field in the evaluation of the acute abdomen.
US however has some advantages.

advantages of US:

• US does not require ionizing radiation, which can be important in younger patients and pregnant women.
• The spatial resolution of a high-frequency US image is higher than that of a CT image.
  This is only true if the target organ can be approached closely, which requires either a thin patient or the use of graded compression.