Kidney Week 2025 Annual Meeting-Point-of-Care Ultrasonography in Nephrology: Current Practice and Future Directions

Video Transcription

Video Summary

The session marked the final day of ASN and focused on point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) in nephrology. Moderators Adina Vojkulescu (Mass General Brigham/Harvard) and Bhavna Pasin Chhabra (Mayo Clinic Arizona) introduced a series of talks covering implementation, venous congestion assessment, dialysis access applications, and real-world case use.<br /><br />Dr. Catherine Moore (University of Rochester) reviewed the rapid growth of nephrology POCUS education since the 2010s, while highlighting persistent gaps: limited trained faculty, variable curricula, and fellows’ low confidence and infrequent use. She outlined essentials for program implementation—adequate devices, image archival, QA processes, trained personnel, and structured curricula—emphasizing hands-on and longitudinal training to prevent skill decay. She discussed assessment methods (OSCEs, asynchronous tests, portfolios) and warned against “phantom,” “illiterate,” and “blind” scans lacking documentation and/or saved images.<br /><br />Dr. William Beaubien-Souligny (University of Montreal) presented VEXUS, combining IVC assessment with venous Doppler patterns (hepatic, portal, intrarenal) to better identify clinically significant venous congestion and predict adverse outcomes such as AKI, especially after cardiac surgery and in heart failure. He stressed that VEXUS reflects congestion physiology and fluid tolerance—not total body water—and should be integrated with lung and cardiac ultrasound.<br /><br />A prerecorded talk by Prof. Wanda N. (Emory) covered bedside ultrasound in dialysis units, particularly for vascular access: ultrasound-guided catheter placement, fistula maturity assessment, cannulation mapping, and identifying thrombosis or infection, while noting limitations of handheld devices for full flow quantification and stenosis evaluation.<br /><br />Dr. Srinivas Korotala (Medical College of Wisconsin) concluded with practical cases showing how multi-organ POCUS changes management (e.g., tamponade, Foley obstruction, B-lines interpretation, right heart strain, and VEXUS-guided decongestion), reinforcing the need to interpret findings in clinical context and use EKG when interpreting venous Doppler.

Asset Subtitle

Moderator(s): Bhavna Bhasin-Chhabra, Adina Voiculescu

Presentation(s):

Implementing POCUS in Nephrology Practice: Training, Challenges, and Future Directions - Catherine Moore
Venous Congestion VExUS Score in Nephrology: A New Frontier in Volume Assessment - William Beaubien-Souligny
Vascular Access Ultrasonography: Recognizing Quick Wins and Setting Limits at the Bedside - Vandana Niyyar
Unlocking the Power of POCUS in Nephrology: Real-Life Cases, Real-Time Solutions - Abhilash Koratala

Meta Tag

Date 11/9/2025

Pathway 1 AKI and Critical Care

Pathway 2 Interventional Nephrology

Session ID 507064

Keywords

ASN

point-of-care ultrasound

POCUS in nephrology

nephrology education

POCUS curriculum

faculty training gaps

hands-on longitudinal training

image archival and QA

OSCE assessment

VEXUS score

venous congestion assessment

IVC ultrasound

venous Doppler (hepatic portal intrarenal)

dialysis vascular access ultrasound

multi-organ POCUS case management