In fact, as I was examining the abdomen of the last such patient I saw with these complaints, he looked up at me and said, “you know, Dr. Brandt, you are the first doctor who has touched me.” In addition to being embarrassed for our profession, I thought, as the kids of today say, “Oh, my God.” That patient’s comments prompted me to write this page on how to touch an abdomen. Of course, touch is preceded by inspection and after the patient has unclothed, inspection is performed for scars (trauma, surgery—either

laparotomy or laparoscopy), Everolimus in vitro hyper- or hypopigmentation (radiation, melanoma, Addison’s disease, Kohlmeir-Degos disease), and asymmetry (hernias, organomegaly, masses). After touch, the examiner arrives upon the subject of this page: Gentle Stroking and Delicate Pinching. Most examiners, when pressing on the abdomen and eliciting pain, assume the tenderness arises within the abdominal cavity and fail to consider that it may be from an injured muscle, an irritated or entrapped nerve, hernia, rectus sheath hematoma, or even inflamed fat. Cyriax, in 1919, was the first to note this important observation that anterior abdominal wall pain may arise from structures other than

the underlying viscera. To distinguish intra- from extra-abdominal conditions, I suggest, after inspection, the following routine: (1) Begin with a very gentle stroking of the abdominal skin, using as light a touch as possible, passing rapidly from inferior to superior (left, middle, and right vertical striping) and Olaparib in vitro then left to right (upper, middle, and lower horizontal striping), including all 9 anatomic however regions of the abdomen (right and left hypochondriac, lumbar, and iliac, and epigastric, umbilical, and hypogastric). Hyperalgesia or dysesthesia can thus be elicited and reveals any area with abnormal sensation or innervation. This technique alone can pick up the

early stages of shingles, a nerve entrapment syndrome or neuropathy, or can even identify an intraabdominal pathologic condition with peritoneal irritation. (2) I then follow this gentle stroking with a deeper stroke as if I were creating a propagated wave form with my finger. This enables me to determine the texture of the skin and muscle; is it smooth, granular, lumpy, freely mobile, intact? I then proceed to gently pinch my fingers together, thereby grabbing a small pannus of fat; I gently squeeze it, again in each of the 9 anatomic regions of the abdomen; how else can one diagnose painful fat syndrome? (3) Now I will probe more deeply, again mindful of the anatomic regions. The edges of the liver and possibly the spleen are found along the way and noted for their palpable characteristics such as firmness, smoothness, and nodularity.