Health Care Activity
peritoneal lavage
per·i·ton·e·al lav·age
Subclass of:
Therapeutic Irrigation
Definitions related to peritoneal lavage:
  • A minimally invasive procedure that permits sampling of peritoneal fluid for cytopathologic analysis.
    NCI
    U.S. National Cancer Institute, 2021
  • Washing out of the peritoneal cavity. The procedure is a diagnostic as well as a therapeutic technique following abdominal trauma or inflammation.
    NLM Medical Subject Headings
    U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2025
  • At one time, diagnostic peritoneal lavage (DPL), described by Root in 1965, was the diagnostic test of choice to detect bleeding within the abdominal cavity after trauma. However, the advent and widespread availability of computed tomography (CT), which carries near-comparable sensitivity and superior specificity, has limited the use of...
    Medscape
    WebMD, 2025
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