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Introduction Lung diseases are the most frequently encountered form of diseases primarily affecting infants under one year of age. Although the chest X-ray is the first modality of choice, ultrasonography (USG) has emerged as an alternative. Lung ultrasound (LUS) finds its application in the evaluation of several pediatric lung diseases. Objective To assess the use of LUS in acute lower respiratory infections and assess the correlation between etiological diagnosis and radiological diagnosis. Methods This was a hospital-based prospective observational study conducted with children presenting with upper respiratory infections. Around 97 children were included in the study. Clinical diagnosis was made by the pediatrician. LUS was performed by a trained radiologist, using the two-dimensional (2D) ultrasound mode and motion mode (M mode) to assess the LUS in the respective areas of the chest, thereby assessing bilateral lung fields for these patients. Results The majority of our study participants were under one year old (87%), and more than half were male (55%). Bronchiolitis and lower respiratory tract infections (LRIs) were the most commonly seen clinical diagnoses. The distribution of USG findings was statistically significant across the clinical diagnosis (p-value < 0.05). Conclusion Our study found that LUS can serve as an important tool for diagnosing several acute respiratory diseases. It also showed that LUS can replace X-rays in cases of children diagnosed with acute respiratory diseases.
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Background This study aims to identify the potential advantages of quantitative determination of various focal liver pathologies, identify lesion hemodynamics, and distinguish benign and malignant pathologies based on CT perfusion (CTP) parameters. Methodology In this study, we examined 36 patients using contrast-enhanced CT (CECT) and proposed inclusion and exclusion criteria. Of the 36 patients, 18 had malignant lesions and 14 had benign lesions. CTP was performed on patients comprising cases of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), metastasis, hemangiomas, hepatic cysts, and hepatic abscess. Images were post-processed and analyzed to calculate various perfusion parameters such as blood flow (BF), blood volume (BV), permeability surface (PS), mean transit time (MTT), the hepatic arterial fraction (HAF), and induced residue fraction time of onset (IRFTO). Parameters were compared between benign and malignant lesions, and descriptive analysis was performed for individual lesions. Results Data were analyzed with IBM SPSS Statistics (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA). IRFTO showed the area of the curve (AOC) = 0.659, P-value = 0.040, sensitivity 66.7%, and specificity 64.3%. BV showed AOC = 0.659, P-value = 0.040, with a cutoff value of 1.26, sensitivity of 66.7%, and specificity of 64.3%. BF showed AOC = 0.786 and P-value = 0.006, with a cutoff value of 171.2, sensitivity of 83.3%, and specificity of 78.6%. MTT showed AOC = 0.778 and P-value = 0.008, with a cutoff value of 6.94, sensitivity of 77.8%, and specificity of 78.6%. Statistically significant changes were observed in the perfusion parameters in the BV, BF, MTT, and IRFTO. Conclusions The noninvasive CT liver perfusion technique makes it possible to compare the hemodynamic changes in healthy and sick liver tissues, identify focal liver lesions, and evaluate the effectiveness of tumor therapy.
