Guidelines for the use of Contrast Agents in Ultrasound - Update

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Many of you will be aware that in January of 2004 EFSUMB held a meeting of experts in Rotterdam to formulate guidelines for the use of ultrasonic contrast agents in the liver. These were subsequently published in the August 2004 edition of Ultraschall in der Medizin/European Journal of Ultrasound (EJU), and have also been published in French and Chinese. To our knowledge there have also been at least 20.000 reprints produced in English and 5.000 in Chinese. These guidelines are freely available from our website at www.efsumb.org.

Time has moved on, and it is now the belief of EFSUMB, and the group of experts that developed the original guidelines, that the recommendations should be revisited and expanded to include applications in the kidney, in reflux, in the pancreas, and in the cerebral circulation. In order to achieve this EFSUMB have set up two further meetings of experts (generously sponsored by manufacturers of both contrast agents and ultrasound equipment). The first meeting was held in Bologna in September 2006 just prior to the EUROSON meeting, and some of the preliminary deliberations of the expert group were presented at that EUROSON meeting. The second meeting was held at the end of January 2007 in Rotterdam, immediately following the European Symposium on Ultrasound Contrast Imaging. It is expected that the updated guidelines will be published well before the end of 2007 in EJU and possibly in other relevant journals. The guidelines will of course also be published on the EFSUMB web-site.

David Evans

EFSUMB President