<b><i>Background:</i></b> Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a pandemic overwhelming the health care systems worldwide. Lung ultrasound (LUS) use has been proposed to identify suspected COVID-19 patients and direct them to the isolation area in the emergency department (ED) or to discharge them for outpatient treatment. <b><i>Objective:</i></b> Our aim was to retrospectively investigate the use of LUS in the ED to identify COVID-19 pneumonia (CP). <b><i>Methods:</i></b> We performed a retrospective single-center study including all patients accessing the ED who underwent LUS examination for suspicion of COVID-19 during the initial outbreak. Demographics, clinical parameters, laboratory values, imaging features, and outcome variables were collected. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to evaluate diagnostic accuracy. <b><i>Results:</i></b> A total of 41% patients were COVID-19-positive; 67% of them were diagnosed with CP. The ROC curve of the LUS score showed an area under the curve of 0.837 (95% CI 0.75–0.92) and with a cutoff value ≥3 identified 28 of 31 patients with CP and 11 of 15 without (sensitivity 90%, 95% CI 74–97%; specificity 75%, 95% CI 56–76%). LUS in combination with nasopharyngeal swab has a sensitivity of 100% (95% CI 74–97%) and a specificity of 61% (95% CI 44–67%). <b><i>Conclusions:</i></b> LUS is a promising technique for early identification of CP in patients who accessed the ED in an active epidemic time. The LUS score shows a sensitivity of 90% for CP, allowing to quickly direct patients with COVID-19 to the ED isolation area or to discharge them for outpatient treatment.

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The need for ward admission in older patients who access the ED after a fall seems to be determined not only by the severity of fall-related injuries, but also by the fall dynamics and the individual's clinical complexity. Geriatr Gerontol Int 2018; 18: 1388-1392.

Background This report describes a manufacturer‐independent evaluation of the diagnostic accuracy of the Elecsys SARS‐CoV‐2 antigen assay from Roche Diagnostics in a tertiary care setting. Methods In this single‐center study, we used nasopharyngeal swabs from 403 cases from the emergency department and intensive care unit of our hospital. The reference standard for detecting SARS‐CoV‐2 was the reverse‐transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT‐PCR) assay. Cycle threshold (Ct) values were recorded for positive RT‐PCR assays. The index test was the Elecsys SARS‐CoV‐2 antigen assay. This electrochemiluminescence immunoassay produces results as cutoff index (COI) values, with values ≥1.00 being reported as positive. Results Of the 403 cases, 47 showed positive results in RT‐PCR assays. Of the 47 RT‐PCR‐positive cases, 12 showed positive results in the antigen assay. Of the 356 RT‐PCR‐negative cases, all showed negative results in the antigen assay. Thus, the antigen assay showed a sensitivity of 26% (95% CI, 14%‐40%) and specificity of 100% (95% CI, 99%‐100%). Analysis of the relationship between Ct values and COI values in the 47 RT‐PCR‐positive cases showed a correlation coefficient of −0.704 (95% CI, −0.824 to −0.522). The true‐positive rate of the antigen assay for Ct values of 15–24.9, 25–29.9, 30–34.9, and 35–39.9 was 100%, 44%, 8%, and 6%, respectively. Conclusions The Elecsys SARS‐CoV‐2 antigen assay has a low sensitivity for detecting SARS‐CoV‐2 from nasopharyngeal swabs. Hence, we decided to not use this assay in the clinical routine of our hospital.