Pulmonary ultrasound shows the duration, severity of coronavirus disease

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According to an open access article published in ARRS ‘ American Journal of Roentgenology (AJR), lung ultrasound (US) was highly sensitive in detecting abnormalities in patients with coronavirus disease (COVID-19), with B lines, a thickened pleural line, and lung consolidation as the most commonly observed features.

“Furthermore,” concluded Yao Zhang of Beijing Ditan Hospital in China, “our results indicate that the lung findings in the US can be used to reflect both the duration of infection and the severity of the disease.”

From March 3 to March 30, 2020, Zhang and his colleagues performed a lung ultrasound in consecutive patients with positive results of the reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RTPCR) test for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS). -CoV-2), using Fisher’s exact test to compare the percentages of patients with each US finding between groups with different symptom durations and disease severity.

The 28 patients (14 men and 14 women; age range, 21-92 years) had positive findings on both lung ultrasound and chest CT. In the USA, B lines were present in 100% of patients, and 19 (67.9%) patients had lung consolidation. Thickened pleural lines were observed in 17 patients (60.7%), and only one patient (3.6%) showed a small amount of pleural effusion.

“A thickened pleural line was seen more frequently in the US in patients with longer time intervals after the initial onset of symptoms,” Zhang et al. she noted, adding that lung consolidations, viewed as tissue-like hypoechoic regions, reflecting greatly reduced airflow and increased amounts of inflammatory cell exudate, were more common in severe and critical cases.

Recognizing that portable radiography could be just as useful in assessing consolidation, “a portable and bedside portable US system or even a robot-assisted US system (a unique technique for doctors scan patients remotely) further minimizes the number of healthcare workers and medical devices exposed to COVID-19, “Zhang and his team wrote.

The authors of this AJR article also proposed that the severity score for the lungs in the US, Similar to CT severity scores, be developed to facilitate more accurate comparisons in future studies.