Auscultatie van de buik

Conflict of interest: none declared. Financial support: none declared.

• Normal bowel sounds vary considerably in intensity, pitch and frequency.

• Due to the wide range of physiological variation, the clinical significance of abdominal bowel sounds is limited.

• There is no clear evidence that very high-pitched bowel sounds have clinical pertinence.

• Small bowel obstruction is more commonly associated with hyperactive bowel sounds than with substantially diminished or absent bowel sounds.

• In 4-20% of young adults, systolic bruits are heard in the epigastric region that are not associated with abnormalities.

• There is no evidence that abdominal aortic aneurysms are associated with abdominal bruits.

• An abdominal bruit is indicative of renal artery stenosis when blood pressure control remains unsatisfactory, in particular when the bruit is also heard during diastole.