COVID-19 Research Paper Volume 12, Issue 20 pp 19945—19953
Lung ultrasound is a reliable diagnostic technique to predict abnormal CT chest scan and to detect oxygen requirements in COVID-19 pneumonia
- 1 Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, INSERM UMR_S942, Bobigny F-93009, Paris, France
- 2 AP-HP, Hôpital Avicenne, Unité de Médecine Ambulatoire (UMA), Bobigny F-93009, Paris, France
- 3 AP-HP, Hôpital Avicenne, Service de Médecine Gériatrique, Bobigny F-93009, Paris, France
- 4 AP-HP, Hôpital Avicenne, Service de Maladies Infectieuses et Tropicales, Bobigny F-93009, Paris, France
- 5 Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, EA 3412, Bobigny F-93009, Paris, France
- 6 AP-HP, Hôpital Avicenne, Service d’Ophtalmologie, Bobigny F-93009, Paris, France
- 7 Service de Rhumatologie, AP-HM, Aix-Marseille Université, Marseille, France
- 8 CRMBM/CEMEREM, UMR CNRS 7339, Aix-Marseille Université, Marseille, France
- 9 AP-HP, Hôpital Avicenne, Service d’Oncologie Médicale, Bobigny F-93009, Paris, France
- 10 AP-HP, Hôpital Avicenne, Service de Radiologie Interventionnelle, Bobigny F-93009, Paris, France
- 11 Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, INSERM UMR_S1162 Paris, Bobigny F-93009, Paris, France
- 12 Inserm U1138, Centre de Recherche des Cordeliers, Paris F-75006, Paris, France
Received: July 28, 2020 Accepted: September 9, 2020 Published: October 30, 2020
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.104150How to Cite
Copyright: © 2020 Falgarone et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
COVID-19 pneumonia can be severe, with an unpredictable evolution and high mortality prevalence in older patients. The diagnosis is usually performed by RT-PCR or CT chest scan. Lung ultrasonography (LUS) has been proposed as an alternative method to monitor patients with COVID-19 pneumonia.
To assess the diagnostic performance of LUS, we performed LUS using a portable device and adapting a protocol already used in Acute Respiratory Syndrome. We used the score obtained with the index we created to assess for LUS diagnostic performance as compared to lung CT chest scan and to predict for oxygen requirements.
Daily bedside LUS was easy to perform and microbiologically safe. LUS was 89% sensitive and 100% specific in predicting CT chest scan abnormalities, and 95% sensitive and 67% specific in detecting oxygen requirements.
This is the first report on the diagnostic performance of LUS as compared to CT chest scan for the diagnosis of COVID-19 pneumonia and assessments of oxygen requirements by LUS. LUS could help in the orientation of dyspneic patients to intensive care. It could also be proposed when there is limited access to CT scan in the context of a pandemic crisis, or to implement clinical lung examinations for outpatient follow-up.