ABSTRACT
Objective:To assess the accuracy of lung ultrasound(LUS) to predict pneumonia in pediatric patients using meta-analysis.Methods:The PubMed, the Cochrane Library, EMbase databases from January 2015 to March 2020 were searched.The retrieved outcome data to evaluate the efficacy of LUS for the diagnosis of pneumonia in patients under 18 years of age were included.Two reviewers independently screened literature, extracted data and assessed the risk of bias of included studies.Meta-analysis was then conducted using MetaDisc 1.4, RevMan 5.3 and Stata 15.0 softwares.Results:Twelve diagnostic studies were included, which involved 2 484 patients.The results of meta-analysis showed that compared with the gold standard, the sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative likelihood ratios, diagnostic odds ratio of LUS were 0.90(95% CI 0.88-0.91), 0.88(95% CI 0.85-0.90), 8.64(95% CI 3.79-19.72), 0.12(95% CI 0.06-0.26) and 77.58(95% CI 28.39-211.99), respectively.The area under the summary receiver operating characteri stic curve was 0.96.Subgroup analysis showed that there was no difference in LUS′s diagnostic accuracy for pneumonia with different department, different diagnostic gold standard, and different level of sonographer training. Conclusion:Current evidence shows that LUS has a high accuracy in the diagnosis of pneumonia in children.