Bedside lung ultrasound in the diagnosis of pneumonia in very old patients

Submitted: 8 January 2018
Accepted: 8 February 2018
Published: 20 February 2018
Abstract Views: 1235
PDF: 734
HTML: 236
Publisher's note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Authors

In several studies mainly undertaken in emergency departments, lung ultrasound (LUS) has a sensitivity similar and/or superior to the one of chest X-ray (CXR) in the diagnosis of pneumonia. The aim was to evaluate if LUS may be applied as first step imaging examination in the diagnosis of pneumonia also in medical/geriatric setting other than in emergency departments. We reviewed the clinical files of 128 very old patients (61 M and 67 F, age ranging from 78 to 94 yrs, mean 84.8 year) discharged in a period of 20 months with diagnosis of pneumonia in which both CXR and LUS were performed. The majority of patients had co-morbidities and/or motor disability and/or cognitive impairment. The sensitivity of LUS resulted in 82.03% (105/128) and those of CXR 75.78% (97/128): the difference was statistically not significant. Only the presence of pleural effusion resulted significantly higher with LUS when compared with the one observed with CXR (55.46% vs 37.5%, P=0.0039). The superiority of LUS with respect to CXR, although statistically not significant, suggests the use of ultrasound as a first step examination not only in emergency departments or in pediatric setting but also in very old patients with symptoms suspicious of pneumonia. The use of LUS in frail old patients with multiple co-morbidities can be easily carried out at the bedside and provides diagnostic information avoiding delaying the appropriate antimicrobial treatment.

Dimensions

Altmetric

PlumX Metrics

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Citations

How to Cite

Cipollini, F., & Mirauta, C. M. (2018). Bedside lung ultrasound in the diagnosis of pneumonia in very old patients. Italian Journal of Medicine, 12(2), 126–130. https://doi.org/10.4081/itjm.2018.981

Similar Articles

1 2 > >> 

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.

List of Cited By :

Crossref logo