Pediatric COVID-19 Follow-Up with Lung Ultrasound: A Prospective Cohort Study.
Domenico Paolo La ReginaDaniela PepinoRaffaella NennaElio IovineEnrica MancinoGianmarco AndreoliAnna Maria ZicariAlberto SpaliceFabio Midullanull On Behalf Of The Long Covid Research GroupPublished in: Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) (2022)
During the COVID-19 pandemic, lung ultrasound (LUS) was widely used to assess SARS-CoV-2 infection. To date, there are patients with persistence of symptoms after acute infection. Therefore, it may be useful to have an objective tool to follow these patients. The aim of our study was to evaluate the presence of LUS artifacts after SARS-CoV-2 infection in children and to analyze the associations between time elapsed since infection and symptomatology during acute infection. We conducted an observational study, enrolling 607 children infected with SARS-CoV-2 in the previous twelve months. All patients performed a LUS and medical history of demographic and clinical data. We observed irregular pleural lines in 27.5%, B-lines in 16.9%, and subpleural consolidations in 8.6% of the cases. These artifacts were more frequently observed in the lower lobe projections. We have observed that the frequency of artifacts decreases with increasing time since infection. In symptomatic patients during COVID infection, B-lines ( p = 0.02) were more frequently found. In our sample, some children, even after months of acute infection, have ultrasound artifacts and showed an improvement with the passage of time from the acute episode. Our study provides additional evidence about LUS in children with previous COVID-19 as a support to follow these patients in the months following the infection.
Keyphrases
- end stage renal disease
- sars cov
- ejection fraction
- chronic kidney disease
- newly diagnosed
- young adults
- peritoneal dialysis
- magnetic resonance imaging
- prognostic factors
- coronavirus disease
- healthcare
- respiratory syndrome coronavirus
- liver failure
- respiratory failure
- extracorporeal membrane oxygenation
- ultrasound guided
- depressive symptoms
- drug induced
- aortic dissection
- contrast enhanced