Point of care lung ultrasound in COVID-19: hype or hope?
Abdulrahman M AlfuraihPublished in: BJR open (2020)
The COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic has critically struck the world economy and healthcare systems. The highly contagious virus spreads rapidly and can result in potentially life-threatening acute respiratory distress. The current established test for diagnosing COVID-19 is using the RT-PCR laboratory test. However, the test requires specialized laboratories and testing kits. Recent reports also showed high false-negative rates. Experts recognize the urgent need to develop a rapid point of care diagnostic tests. Ultrasonography is a widely established safe diagnostic imaging test for detecting various lung abnormalities. Recent publications from China and Italy provided limited evidence on its usefulness for diagnosing COVID-19 in emergency departments earlier than RT-PCR. Ultrasound is sensitive to pleural and subpleural abnormalities, which suggests a great potential diagnostic role given the predilection for COVID-19 in peripheral subpleural regions.This paper reviews the current evidence and discusses the problems with specificity and scoring.
Keyphrases
- sars cov
- coronavirus disease
- healthcare
- respiratory syndrome coronavirus
- magnetic resonance imaging
- mental health
- palliative care
- magnetic resonance
- randomized controlled trial
- high resolution
- mass spectrometry
- ultrasound guided
- contrast enhanced ultrasound
- extracorporeal membrane oxygenation
- social media
- drug induced