What does ultrasound have to do with resuscitative thoracotomy? Isn’t one done with a knife and scissors while the other uses a sound wand? It turns out that ultrasound may be able to predict who will and will not survive after having their chest cracked. A study coming out in the September 2015 Annals of Surgery found that patients in traumatic cardiac arrest who had no cardiac motion and no pericardial fluid on point of care ultrasound had a zero survival rate following thoracotomy.
