Opinion Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Crit Care Med. Nov 9, 2021; 10(6): 310-322
Published online Nov 9, 2021. doi: 10.5492/wjccm.v10.i6.310
Point of care venous Doppler ultrasound: Exploring the missing piece of bedside hemodynamic assessment
Pablo Galindo, Carlos Gasca, Eduardo R Argaiz, Abhilash Koratala
Pablo Galindo, Department of Nephrology, Centro Médico ISSEMYM, Ecatepec 55000, Mexico
Carlos Gasca, Department of Critical Care, Hospital Juárez de México, Mexico City 07760, Mexico
Eduardo R Argaiz, Department of Nephrology and Mineral Metabolism, Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas y Nutrición Salvador Zubirán, Mexico City 14080, Mexico
Abhilash Koratala, Division of Nephrology, Medical College of Wisconsin, Wauwatosa, WI 53226, United States
Author contributions: Galindo P, Gasca C and Argaiz ER designed and drafted the initial version of the manuscript; Koratala A reviewed and revised the manuscript for important intellectual content; All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors declare that no conflicts of interest exist.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Abhilash Koratala, MD, Assistant Professor, Division of Nephrology, Medical College of Wisconsin, 8701 W Watertown Plank Rd, Wauwatosa, WI 53226, United States. akoratala@mcw.edu
Received: April 29, 2021
Peer-review started: April 29, 2021
First decision: June 17, 2021
Revised: June 28, 2021
Accepted: September 30, 2021
Article in press: September 30, 2021
Published online: November 9, 2021
Core Tip

Core Tip: Point-of-care Doppler ultrasonography is emerging as a valuable bedside diagnostic tool for the assessment of venous congestion. Doppler interrogation of the abdominal veins such as the hepatic, portal, renal parenchymal veins in addition to inferior vena cava ultrasound provides useful insights into a patient’s hemodynamics, when interpreted in conjunction with other sonographic parameters such as the cardiac pump function, lung ultrasound and conventional clinical assessment.