Intrasplenic posttraumatic pseudoaneurysm: Echo color Doppler diagnosis

Nonsurgical conservative treatment of blunt splenic trauma has gained widespread consensus in the last few years. It has been demonstrated that 60% of patients with blunt abdominal trauma with spleen lesion achieve the best therapy by using conservative therapy. Despite the accuracy of ultrasonography (US) and computed tomography in detecting and grading the spleen lesions, the evolution of the lesion is often unexpected. In 15 to 30% of patients, a two-stage splenic rupture may be expected within 2 weeks. Delayed complications, such as splenic abscesses and pseudoaneurysms of the splenic artery and its branches, have been observed. To prevent complications, a short follow-up has been scheduled for these patients by using US and US color Doppler. The authors propose routine echo Doppler evaluation for all patients affected by intraparenchymal hematoma after blunt abdominal trauma.