BACKGROUND: Ultrasound is being used increasingly to diagnose pathological free fluid accumulation at the bedside. In addition to the detection of peritoneal and pericardial fluid, point-of-care ultrasound allows rapid bedside diagnosis of pleural fluid.FINDINGS: In this short report, we describe the sonographic observation of the vertebral or 'V-line' to help confirm the presence of pleural fluid in the supine patient. The V-line sign is a result of the fluid acting as an acoustic window to enable visualization of vertebral bodies and posterior thoracic wall, thus confirming the presence of pleural fluid.CONCLUSIONS: The V-line is a useful sonographic sign to aid the diagnosis of pleural free fluid.
CITATION STYLE
Atkinson, P., Milne, J., Loubani, O., & Verheul, G. (2012). The V-line: a sonographic aid for the confirmation of pleural fluid. Critical Ultrasound Journal, 4(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/2036-7902-4-19
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