A comparative study between bedside pleuropulmonary ultrasonography and chest X-ray in patients with dyspnea / 中华超声影像学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To evaluate the ability of high resolution pleuropulmonary ultrasonography and bedside chest X-ray in identifying different pathologic abnormalities in patients with dyspnea,using thoracic computed tomography (CT) as a gold standard.Methods Bedside pleuropulmonary ultrasonography was performed in 350 dyspneic patients in the emergency department and ICU,111 patients were enrolled in the study with pleuropulmonary ultrasonography,chest X-ray and chest CT examination performed within 24 hours.Pathologic entities were evaluatedpleural effusion,consolidation,atelectasis,pneumothorax,pulmonary interstitial fibrosis,and pulmonary edema.The sensitivity,specificity,negative and positive prediction value of pleuropulmonary ultrasonography and chest X-ray were compared with the corresponding CT scan results.Results Pleuropulmonary ultrasonography was highly concordant with chest X-ray.Overall ultrasonography exhibited higher sensitivity than chest X-ray and CT for pleural effusion.For atelectasis and pulmonary edema,the sensitivity of ultrasonography was up to 100%.In the diagnosis of pulmonary interstitial fibrosis,the sensitivity of pleuropulmonary ultrasonography was higher than that of chest X-ray,but the specificity was slightly lower.The sensitivity of pleuropulmonary ultrasonography was slightly higher than that of chest X-ray in pneumothorax,and the specificity was coincident with chest X-ray.Although the sensitivity of ultrasonography was slightly lower for consolidation,it was still higher than chest X-ray.The ability of chest X-ray for differentiating pleural effusion from atelectasis or consolidation was worse than that of ultrasonography.Conclusions Our study demonstrates a high concordance between ultrasonography with radiography.The diagnostic performance of bedside pleuropulmonary ultrasonography is better than that of chest X-ray.