[Abdominal injuries in children. The value of emergency abdominal ultrasonography]. / Traumatisme abdominal de l'enfant. Intérêt de l'échographie abdominale en urgence.

UNLABELLED: Abdominal injuries are frequent in children. Their early assessment is the best guarantee for an accurate management. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Seventy children with abdominal trauma were evaluated by early ultrasonography. RESULTS: This investigation found abnormalities in 52 patients, with hematic peritoneal effusion in 26 cases, renal lesion in 20 cases, hepatic lesion in ten cases, splenic lesion in seven cases and a lesion involving liver, spleen and pancreas in one case. Based on these results, surgery was performed in six cases. The remaining cases were simply supervised with a good prognosis. CONCLUSION: Ultrasonography represents the main investigation in children's abdominal trauma, allowing an early, efficient and non-costly morphological diagnosis. Computerized tomography (CT) scan has some particular indications.