الفهرس 
INTRODUCTIONOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
The abdominal wall swellings have a wide range of differential diagnoses by the clinical examination, so a confirmatory study may be warranted especially if surgical intervention is planned.
Ultrasound is suggested to be used as the first-line imaging modality in diagnosing abdominal wall masses. Accordingly, this study aimed to assess the role of ultrasound in the evaluation of abdominal wall swellings and to provide an overview of the sonographic appearances of different abdominal wall pathologies.
This study was carried out on 30 patients with abdominal wall swellings referred to the Radiology Department of Alexandria Main University Hospital from June 2020 to September 2021.
In the current study, the mean age of patients was 42.60 ± 13.60 years. The peak incidence of anterior abdominal wall lesions in this study was age group 30 – 50 years (50%). Female patients were more predominant than male patients (80% vs 20%, respectively).
Among 30 patients included in this study, 16 patients presented with abdominal wall swelling only (53.3%), nine patients presented with swelling &pain (30%), and five patients with pain & swelling and fever.
Using ultrasound, seven lesions showed ill-defined margins (23.3%) while 23 lesions (76.7%) showed well-defined margins. Five lesions were intramuscular (16.7%), while 25 lesions (83.3%) were subcutaneous. Eight lesions showed internal vascularity on color Doppler study (26.7%) , while in 22 lesions (73.3%) no definite internal vascularity was noted. Most of the lesions were hypoechoic (80%). It was noted that the percentage of homogeneity and heterogenicity of the lesions was equal (50%). Twenty-four lesions were solid (80%) while six lesions (20%) were cystic.
Among 30 patients included in this study, the most common etiology of abdominal wall swellings was endometrioma (20%) followed by the suspicious lesion (16.7%), hematoma (13.3 %) as well as hernia (13.3%).
In the present study, the diagnostic performance of US validity in the diagnosis of the abdominal wall lesions compared to the histopathology and CT findings, the US in the current study had a sensitivity of 100%, a positive predictive value of 81.82%, with a diagnostic accuracy of 81.82%.
Overall, our data suggested that the ultrasound had encouraging results regarding its role in the assessment of abdominal wall swellings with moderate diagnostic accuracy.