The use of contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) has expanded over the past decade to include a variety of diagnostic and therapeutic applications. These include urgent clinical situations that require timely diagnosis and subsequent treatment.With the introduction of microbubble ultrasound contrast agents (UCAs), CEUS provides increased sensitivity and specificity over conventional ultrasound. Within the trauma setting, CEUS benefits include point of care imaging and an ability to monitor perfusion in real-time. Additionally, UCAs are non-nephrotoxic, and can be used when contrast enhanced CT is contraindicated.In this review, we discuss recent advancements of CEUS within trauma settings.

Contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) is an imaging modality that has achieved considerable relevance in various clinical settings including the assessment of renal disease. CEUS is performed by injecting microbubble-based ultrasound contrast agents (UCAs) that create signals to display the microvasculature, allowing quantitative and qualitative assessment of parenchymal perfusion and real-time visualization of the renal anatomy. In recent years, CEUS has been widely accepted and applied for the assessment of kidney perfusion and the characterization of indeterminate renal masses, primarily due to its diagnostic efficacy, availability, low cost, reproducibility, and absence of nephrotoxicity. CEUS provides a higher spatial and temporal resolution than other cross-sectional imaging, resulting in high sensitivity and specificity for its applications in a variety of renal conditions including cancer monitoring following ablation, detection of transplant complications, hypoperfusion, acute traumatic injury, renal artery stenosis, parenchymal infection, and kidney intervention guidance. Additionally, the continuous investigation and development of new technologies surrounding this imaging technique have shown encouraging preliminary results for the use of CEUS in the evaluation of molecular expression in several disease processes, the dynamic analysis of blood flow kinetics, and the implementation of super-resolution imaging systems. The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the current and potential clinical applications of renal CEUS.