Inferior vena cava/aorta diameter index in the assessment of the body fluid status – a comparative study of measurements performed by experienced and inexperienced examiners in a group of young adults

The assessment of the body fluid status is one the most challenging tasks in clinical practice. Although there are many methods to assess the body fluid status of patients, none of them is fully satisfactory in contemporary medical sciences. In the article below, we compare the results of measurements performed by experienced and inexperienced examiners based on the inferior vena cava/aorta diameter index in a sonographic hydration assessment. The study enrolled 50 young students at the age of 19-26 (the median age was 22.95) including 27 women and 23 men. The volunteers were examined in the supine position with GE Logiq 7 system and a convex transducer with the frequency of 2-5 MHz. The measurements were performed in the longitudinal and transverse planes by two inexperienced examiners - the authors of this paper, following a four-hour training conducted by an experienced sonographer. The longitudinal values of the inferior vena cava/aorta diameter index obtained in this study were similar to those found in the literature. The reference value for the inferior vena cava/aorta index determined by Kosiak et al., which constituted 1.2 ± 2 SD, for SD = 0.17, was similar to the values obtained by the authors of this paper which equaled 1.2286 ± 2 SD, for SD = 0.2. The article presented below proves that measuring the inferior vena cava/aorta diameter index is not a complex examination and it may be performed by physicians with no sonographic experience. Furthermore, the paper demonstrates that the inferior vena cava/aorta diameter index measured in the transverse plane is similar to the inferior vena cava/aorta diameter index determined in the longitudinal plane. Thus, both measurements may be used interchangeably to assess the hydration status of patients.