Value of intraoperative ultrasound with conventional probes and its usefulness in surgical and therapeutic management of patients. / Valor de la ecografía intraoperatoria realizada con sondas convencionales y su utilidad en el manejo quirúrgico y terapéutico de los pacientes.

OBJECTIVE: To prove both the reliability and the applications presented by intraoperative ultrasonography (IOUS) in surgical and therapeutic management of diverse pathologies and the possibility of doing it by using conventional equipment. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Single-center retrospective study of 145 IOUS performed by using conventional equipment in 135 patients between January 2011 and June 2016. We assessed the organs studied by ultrasound, underlying conditions of patients, preoperative imaging and the degree of matching them with the histological findings. The functions of the intraoperative ultrasound were assessed in each case. RESULTS: 91,7% of the scans performed were hepatic, being other locations varied but less common. They had a high concordance with the histological results of the lesions analyzed (95.4%) and in 24% of the cases their results did not coincide with those of the preoperative imaging tests, being decisive for the management of the patients. CONCLUSION: Despite the limitations of our study, IOUS has proven to be a reliable and safe diagnostic test with advantages over conventional imaging techniques. It contributes to get a correct diagnosis in those lesions not characterized by the preoperative imaging tests, to locate and delimit the extension of a lesion within an organ and facilitate the performance of diagnostic procedures (intraoperative biopsy) even in centers where we do not have specific probes.