Sonography of inflammatory conditions

Inflammation can manifest itself in similar sonographic findings regardless of which organ is inflamed. Edema of connective tissues and inflammatory hyperemia in and around the inflamed organ are two of these findings. The purpose of this article is to show the importance of connective tissue edema and hyperemia as sonographic findings in inflammatory conditions. We will discuss these findings in a wide spectrum of different inflammatory conditions. We believe that abnormal thickening and increased echogenicity of fat and loose areolar connective tissues and color Doppler and duplex sonographic evidence of inflammatory hyperemia are demonstrable in most acute (and some chronic) inflammatory conditions. Furthermore, their presence strongly suggests an inflammatory etiology and makes other etiologies, such as neoplasm, less likely.