Sonographic findings in patients with an acute pain in Right Upper Quadrant

Abstract

Abdominal pain is a common presentation in the outpatient setting. Patients presenting to the emergency department with RUQ pain are often diagnosed with acute cholecystitis. The spectrum of diseases is also associated with RUQ pain including choledocholithiasis, biliary colic and liver pathologies. Ultrasoundis the first-line imaging modality opted to diagnose the cause of RUQ pain. More than one-third of patients suspected of having acute cholecystitis and right upper quadrant pain after the initial clinical evaluation are ultimately proved to have a different diagnosis.The objective of this study is to find sonographic findings in patients with acute RUQ pain and establish reasons of using Ultrasound in these circumstances. Material and Method: A total of 385 cases who were presented with RUQ pain in Sanabil Health Services Hospital were included in this descriptive observational study. 190 were female and 195 were male with a mean age of 44.7±13.4 years. A thorough scan of complete abdomen was done and results were analyzed through IBM SPSS statistics 28.0 version 2021. Results:Out of total 385 patients, 91 patients (23.6%) were suffering from cholelithiasis and only 19 (5.0%) of them had cholecystitis which are major causes of right upper quadrant pain. Majority of patients (26.8%) were diagnosed with Fatty liver disease, Obstructive kidney disease (17.4%) and a significant number of patients (14.5%) were also normal on Ultrasound scan. Conclusion:The Ultrasonographic diagnosis of majority of patients who are presented with right upper quadrant pain is fatty liver disease and other pathologies which are known to not cause any pain in right upper quadrant