Ultrasound Detection of Body Composition in Critical Care

Patients with acute/critical illness are particularly vulnerable to muscle loss and fluid shifts, which adversely impact clinical outcomes. Assessment of these parameters in hospital settings is often subjective and imprecise, which creates discrepancies in identification and difficulty in follow-up.

The decrease in muscle mass and/or change in the composition, and fluid overload adversely impact the clinical outcome in critically ill patients and their recovery. There is growing interest in body composition (BC) assessment techniques that can be applied in ICU settings. whole-body BC estimates, and select BC variables show promise as biomarkers of muscle health, nutrition risk, and fluid status. Studies reported that Quadriceps muscle thickness predicted increased morbidity/mortality in ICU patients and has been suggested to be an objective biomarker to determine fitness for aggressive treatment. US measures of muscle loss in the critically ill will aid in the development of appropriate intervention strategies. Alternatively, qualitative muscle evaluation through the measure of echogenicity (using image gray-scale visual analysis) is a sensitive indicator of muscle atrophy. The ultrasound can contribute to assessing necrosis, fatty infiltration, and inflammation in place of invasive muscle biopsy in critically ill patients. Ultrasound offers an important tool for early non-volitional assessment of muscle function in the critically ill.

US characterization of muscle changes would facilitate the development and monitoring of muscle-targeted nutrition and physical therapy interventions. Knowing body muscle and adipose tissue mass is essential in several clinical situations to adapt drug dose to the volume of distribution and to guide nutrition as well as physical therapy. US imaging is a practical method for the prospective assessment of SM (skeletal muscle) changes in response to illness and treatment. Previous ICU studies have focused on measurements of muscle quantity (muscle thickness and CSA) in both the quadriceps, a muscle region known to be rapidly impacted by sarcopenia, and to correlate with ICU survival. Ultrasound has been used primarily as a tool for body composition measurement in clinical nutrition. Although many recent reports have demonstrated that ultrasound could be a useful tool for nutritional assessment and body composition assessment, it is not well incorporated into ICU practice regarding nutritional assessment and follow-up This trial is the first to investigate the role of ultrasound in detecting body composition in critically ill obstetrics and gynecological cases and its correlation with clinical outcomes.

Inclusion criteria

• females with age 16 with no upper limit
• American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) class I, II or III,
• admitted to the obstetrics and Gynecology critical care unit

Exclusion criteria

• Patient refusal