Lung Ultrasonography Is an Acceptable Imaging Modality to Diagnose COVID-19 and Effectively Correlates with HRCT Chest—A Prospective Study

Abstract

It has been validated beyond doubt that High-Resolution Computed Tomography (HRCT) chest and to some extent chest radiographs have a role in corona virus disease-19 (COVID-19). Much less is known about the role of lung ultrasonography (LUS) in COVID-19. In this paper, our main purpose was to gauge the relationship between LUS and chest HRCT in reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT–PCR) documented cases of COVID-19, as well as in those with high suspicion of COVID-19 with negative RT–PCR. It was a prospective study carried out at our tertiary care hospital, namely, SKIMS Soura. The total number of patients in this study were 152 (200 patients were selected out of which only 152 had undergone both LUS and chest HRCT). The patients were subjected to both LUS and chest HRCT. The radiologist who performed LUS was blinded to clinical findings and HRCT was evaluated by a radiologist with about a decade of experience. The LUS findings compatible with the disease were subpleural consolidations, B-lines and irregular pleural lines. Findings that were compatible with COVID-19 on chest HRCT were bibasilar, subpleural predominant ground glass opacities, crazy paving and consolidations. COVID-19-positive patients were taken up for chest HRCT for disease severity stratification and were also subjected to LUS. On HRCT chest, the imaging abnormalities compatible with COVID-19 were evident in 110 individuals (72.37%), and on Lung Ultrasound they were observed in 120 individuals (78.95%). Imaging of COVID-19 patients assessed by both LUS and HRCT chest,, showed a positive correlation (p < 0.0001). The study revealed a sensitivity of 88%, a specificity of 76.62%, a positive predictive value of 78.57% and a negative predictive value of 86.76%. None of the individuals with a diagnosis of COVID-19 on HRCT were missed on LUS. An excellent correlation was derived between the LUS score and CT total severity score (p < 0.0001 with a kappa of 0.431). Similar precision compared with chest HRCT in the detection of chest flaws in COVID-19 patients was obtained on LUS.

A Modified Corona Score Using Lung Ultrasound to Identify COVID-19 Patients

“…A recent prospective study of 152 patients showed a significant relationship between high-resolution chest computed tomography (HRCT) and LUS. Importantly, no positive findings on computed tomography were missed on lung ultrasound [ 10 ]. Additionally, when different scenarios are examined, the severity of LUS findings appears to be associated with clinical outcomes [ 11 , 12 ].…”

Multimodal Diagnostics of Changes in Rat Lungs after Vaping

“…An endoscopic lung imaging technique combines the advantages of whole-lung structure imaging with the ability of a morphological examination to reveal a fine subcellular structure. Modern non-invasive imaging methods such as ultrasonography, computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and positron emission tomography (PET) allow detailed and dynamic 3D analysis of anatomical structures in living organisms, but these methods have a limited spatial resolution, which is often not sufficient to visualize tissue and cell microstructures [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) has considerable potential for lung microstructure analysis [20][21][22].…”