Over the past 2 decades venous ultrasonography (US) has become the standard primary imaging technique for the initial evaluation of patients for whom there is clinical suspicion of deep venous thrombosis (DVT) of the lower extremity veins. It has replaced the venogram and other diagnostic studies such as impedance plethysmography, various radionuclide studies, and conventional CT because of its noninvasive nature, the ease with which it can be performed in skilled hands, and its proven efficacy. Compression US first was described as a means of diagnosing DVT in 1986 by Raghavendra and colleagues and was introduced into clinical practice in 1987 by Cronan and colleagues from the United States and Ap-pleman and colleagues from the Netherlands. In the ensuing years multiple articles were published establishing venous US as the examination of choice for the diagnosis of venous thrombosis, further refining the US technique and diagnostic criteria with gray-scale imaging, and also incorporating the newly developed technique of Doppler US.
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