In the emergency department, lung ultrasound is an accurate diagnostic tool for diagnosing pneumonia : Cases on Children (original) (raw)

Pneumonia is a major cause of illness and mortality in children all over the world, but diagnosing it can be difficult, particularly in places without access to trained doctors or conventional imaging. We wanted to know how well lung ultrasonography could diagnose clinical pediatric pneumonia when compared to radiographically proven pneumonia. Between May 1, 2017 and April 30, 2018, we enrolled 2-59-month-olds with primary respiratory symptoms at the Janaki Medical College and Teaching Hospital (JMCTH), Janakpur Dham, Nepal. All subjects got a pediatrician's exam and a GP's lung ultrasound. We enrolled consecutively healthy children. Children with respiratory complaints were x-rayed. A fraction underwent auxiliary lab tests.453 children had pneumonia, 133 asthma, 103 bronchiolitis, and 143 upper respiratory infections. 191 (42%) of 453 children with clinical pneumonia had CXR confirmation. A consolidation on lung ultrasonography, our key outcome for pneumonia, exhibited 88.5% sensitivity, 100% specificity, and an area under-the-curve of 0.94 (95 percent CI 0.92-0.97). When lung ultrasound abnormalities were compared to radiographically-confirmed clinical pneumonia, sensitivity improved to 92.2% and specificity declined to 95.2%, with an AUC of 0.94 (95% CI 0.91-0.96). This study provides further evidence that LUS has a higher diagnostic accuracy than CXR for identifying acute pneumonia. Nevertheless, the accuracy of PLUS, which is a diagnostic tool that is easy to use and is generated from biomarkers, was greater to that of LUS independent of the degree to which patients were fragile.