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The goal in emergency medicine is to provide a patient with dyspnea with the optimal therapy without delay, even when the definitive diagnosis has not yet been ascertained. The focused lung and heart ultrasound is a diagnostic resource that can be deployed immediately and repeatedly, and which rapidly provides the treating physician with essential information for providing therapy. Certain diagnoses (pneumothorax, pleural effusion, pericardial effusion) can be identified based on ultrasound. Other findings, including patient interview and physical exam, must also be considered in order to assess the clinical relevance. Further diagnoses can be made only after combining all findings (lung embolism, cardiac insufficiency with lung edema).

Thoracic ultrasound has a high significance in emergency medicine. In case of dyspnoea, it leads quickly and reliably to the causative disease. Especially in differentiating lobar pneumonia from cardiogenic pulmonary oedema and lung embolism, it may be used with good confidence. After thoracic trauma, most of the injuries can be detected with sonography: lung contusion, pleural effusion, pericardial effusion, pneumothorax, rib fractures and sternal fractures. In clinically unstable patients, vital decisions can be made based on sonographic results.

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