Gastric Ultrasound in Elective Surgical Diabetic Patients

Aspiration of gastric contents during perioperative period is a grave complication with significant morbidity and mortality. The overall incidence of gastric content aspiration ranges between <0.1% and 19% and aspiration pneumonia account for 9% of all anesthesia-related mortality. Mendelson described the pathophysiological mechanisms of pulmonary aspiration, which led to the development of strategies to prevent pulmonary aspiration.

Consequently, American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) released preoperative fasting guidelines for healthy patients undergoing elective surgery, in order to reduce gastric content volume and minimize the risk of aspiration. However, there are still many situations where the ASA fasting guidelines may be not suitable, including urgent or emergency situations and medical conditions such as diabetes mellitus.

Ultrasound is widely available and has been proven to be a reliable, bedside assessment tool for real-time evaluation of gastric contents. As diabetic patients are prone to have an inadequately empty stomach even after an adequate fasting, ultrasound can be used prior to induction for screening the fasting gastric volume (GV) of diabetic patients and see if it is more than the recommended safe limit.

As a novel point-of-care application, ultrasound sonography allows anesthesiologists to evaluate a patient's gastric content and volume at the bedside and helps guide anesthetic and airway management.