Fluid wave test

This is an example of a positive Morison's pouch examine. You can see an anechoic black stripe between the Liver and Kidney that is in Morison's pouch. Note the acute angles and the fact that it's very black or anechoic stripe that indicates free fluid thought to be hemorrhage in acute trauma.


Once we're finished with the right upper quadrant, we can move to the left upper quadrant. The indicator is kept towards the patient's head with the probe placed on the patient's left plank. This will similarly give a Coronal view. It appears quite similar to what we see in the right upper quadrant. However, the face of the probe is to the patient's left.

Here we see the Spleen, Kidney, Diaphragm, This is an example of positive free fluid in the left upper quadrant and you can see it surrounding the interior tip of Spleen. There's an anechoic or black area around there that represents free fluid.

This is an example of a smaller amount of free fluid. You can see it right near the Splenic Hilum. But note that it is anechoic and it does track acute angles indicative of free fluid around the Spleen.


When we finished with the left upper quadrant, we can move to the Pelvis. The indicator is directed towards the patient's right; generally we want to scan down into the Pelvis to really image the Bladder. And then in this case we're starting with a transverse view of the Bladder, the indicator to the patient's right.

This is what we should see on the screen. Patient's right, patient's left Bladder and we're looking post interior to the Bladder to see if there's any fluid which is not present in this normal examination.

In order to get a Sagittal view we rotate the probe clockwise, 90 degrees. So indicator is towards the patient's head. Similarly we're looking behind the Bladder to see if there's any free fluid, the left side of the screen is towards the patient's head, the right side of the screen is towards the patient's feet.
ndicator to the patient's head and we want to interrogate for fluid between the Kidney and Spleen, also down at the tip of the Spleen or over the top of the Spleen.