Takeshi Tsuka ^1* Mohamed Tharwat ²

• ¹ Tottori University, Tottori, Japan
• ² Qassim University, Buraidah, Al-Qassim, Saudi Arabia

This review article describes the roles of ultrasound in assessing thoracic and abdominal infectious diseases, mainly bacterial and parasitic ones that affect farm animals, including cattle, camels, sheep, and goats. Ultrasonography is a non-invasive imaging modality to diagnose the infectious diseases affecting the cardiovascular, respiratory, digestive, urinary, and hepatobiliary systems. Ultrasonography of infectious thoracic and abdominal diseases are commonly characterized by abnormalities in echogenicity and echotexture, appearance of unusual artifact, and mass formation causing mass effect to the peripheral structures. The inflammatory and degenerative changes within the visceras can be ultrasonographically identified when compared with the echogenicity in the peripheral normal parenchyma, such as fascioliasis. Bacterial and parasitic infections cause formation of the capsular mass lesions enveloping anechoic contents in hydatid cysts and cysticercosis, and varying echogenic contents in liver abscessation. Accumulations of effusion within the anatomical spaces of the pericardium, pleura and peritoneum are one of the common ultrasonographic findings of the infectious thoracic and abdominal diseases. However, the echogenicity of the effusions is not always the ultrasonographic evidence allowing differentiation between transudates and exudates. The routine use of ultrasonography for the chest and abdomen of the affected or suspected ruminants will be very helpful for detection of the early stages, therapeutic choice, judgment of prognosis, and eradication of highly contagious diseases that lead to huge economic losses.