Celostna ultrazvočna ocena kongestije pri bolnikih s srčnim popuščanjem – kaj moramo vedeti?

In clinical practice, the assessment of congestion in patients with heart failure is most often based on history, clinical examination, and chest X-ray. Clinical symptoms and signs of congestion or signs of congestion on the radiograph appear only in moderate or severe congestion, which can lead to a delay in the diagnosis and appropriate treatment of patients with heart failure. Ultrasound assessment of pulmonary and systemic venous congestion enables more accurate and early identification of congestion, enables better adjustment of diuretic therapy, and represents an important risk assessment for predicting the treatment outcome in patients with heart failure. For clinical use, ultrasound evaluates systemic venous congestion in the inferior vena cava, internal jugular, hepatic, portal, and interlobar renal veins. In contrast, pulmonary congestion is evaluated with lung ultrasound. Due to the ease of implementation and interpretation, the ultrasound assessment of congestion is accessible to both beginners and those who are not skilled in ultrasound examination of the heart and opens the possibility of using the method to a wide range of doctors who encounter patients with heart failure. In the article, we present individual ultrasound methods for assessing systemic venous and pulmonary congestion, their advantages and disadvantages, and explain the interpretation of the obtained values.