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Lung Ultrasonography

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Lung ultrasonography is a fast, non-expensive, widely available bed-side diagnostic tool which is useful for quick and early diagnosis of respiratory diseases. The aim of the work was to evaluate the role of the chest ultrasound in the assessment of intensive care unit patients. Our prospective study was carried out on 24 ICU patients with different chest symptoms. Fifteen males and nine females with a mean age of 53.83±14.63 years (range 14-75 years), with clinical presentation such as dyspnea (17 patients), chest pain (15 patients), cough and expectoration (15 patients). All patients had real time gray scale ultrasound with a 3.5-5 MHZ (curvilinear) and 5-8 MHZ (linear) probes. M-mode (motion mode) was utilized as an adjunctive imaging modality in all patients. …show more content…

We found that sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of lung US in the diagnosis of thoracic non pulmonary lesions were: pleural effusion (100%, 100%, 100%), pleural masses (83%, 78%, 80%), pneumothorax (80%, 95%, 91.66%), mediastinal lymphadenopathy (75%, 70%, 70.8%) and chest wall lesions (95%, 91%, 94%). In conclusion, Chest US offers a noninvasive diagnostic study at the bedside for evaluation of critically ill patients. US has many advantages, including examination in multiple planes, absence of ionizing radiation, less expensive, high sensitivity in detection of many chest lesions. The main limitations of chest US, it is personal dependent. Also, it is difficult to use this technique on obese patients and in patients lying in positions that limit the exploration of lung areas. The presence of drains and catheters can interfere with the appropriate placement of the

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