I just wanted to revisit the Trick of using bedside ultrasonography to diagnose retinal detachments. I covered this also in a previous Tricks of the Trade post last year, but I just had to reiterate how easy it can be to detect it by ultrasound. Be sure to use plenty of ultrasound gel and use the linear tranducer.
The eye should normally appear as a circular hypoechoic structure. Above is a 7-second video I recently captured of a patient's eye in transverse view. The irregular, hyperechoeic stripe (bottom of screen) that you see floating in the anechoic posterior chamber is the patient's detached retina.
