[Functional ultrasound in gastroenterology]

Ultrasonography has become increasingly important in the routine diagnostics of gastrointestinal diseases. It is first of all a morphological diagnostic method. As it not only assesses the wall structure of the gallbladder, the pancreatic duct and the whole gastrointestinal tract but also visualises motion sequences as a real-time-method, functional processes and their disruptions can especially be examined. The present authors give a review of the capacity of functional ultrasound in different anatomic zones and critically discuss its practical relevance.