Introduction: Traumatic injury is the leading cause of death in individuals under 45 years of age, and point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) has become an essential component of the initial trauma evaluation. However, positive findings on the extended focused assessment with sonography in trauma (eFAST) may be misinterpreted as evidence of an acute surgical emergency, particularly in the context of blunt trauma, underscoring the need for careful clinical correlation.
\nCase Report: We present a case in which a hemodynamically unstable patient had significant free abdominal fluid on eFAST after a fall from standing height. She was ultimately diagnosed with a high-risk pulmonary embolism as the cause of her hemodynamic instability, while the free abdominal fluid was identified as originating both from a ruptured ovarian cyst and from moderate-volume ascites.
\nConclusion: The eFAST exam is a valuable tool in rapidly identifying intra-abdominal injuries following blunt trauma. However, the presence of free fluid on eFAST may result from causes other than acute intra-abdominal injury requiring surgical intervention. Therefore, emergency physicians should interpret positive findings with clinical judgment and consider the broader clinical context.
","language":"eng","license":{"name":"Creative Commons Attribution 4.0","short_name":"CC BY 4.0","text":"Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.\r\n\r\nNo additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0"},"keywords":[{"word":"case report"},{"word":"EFAST"},{"word":"Trauma"},{"word":"pulmonary embolism"}],"section":"Case Reports","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5wd730wf","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Natalie","middle_name":"","last_name":"Jansen","name_suffix":"","institution":"Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Department of Emergency Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts","department":""},{"first_name":"Christie","middle_name":"Lea","last_name":"Fritz","name_suffix":"","institution":"Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Department of Emergency Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts","department":""}],"date_submitted":"2025-02-13T13:07:03.778000-07:00","date_accepted":"2025-06-03T18:58:48.603000-07:00","date_published":"2025-07-30T00:43:00-07:00","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/uciem_cpcem/article/43502/galley/38490/download/"}]}