Lung Ultrasound Monitoring of Legionella Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia in an Extremely Low-Birth-Weight Infant

Abstract

Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) is a common complication of different severe lung diseases that need to be treated with mechanical ventilation in newborn infants. However, VAP due to Legionella pneumophila infection is rarely reported in the literature, especially in extremely low-birth-weight (ELBW) infants. Lung ultrasound (LUS) has been used in the diagnosis of neonatal pneumonia, but there is no literature on the ultrasound characteristics of Legionella-VAP in ELBW infants. This paper introduced the typical LUS findings of Legionella-VAP in ELBW infants, which mainly includes severe and large-area lung consolidation and atelectasis in the bilateral lungs; whether there is blood supply in the consolidated area has an important reference value for predicting the prognosis. In addition, the treatment and management experience were also introduced together, thereby helping us to deepen the understanding of the disease and avoid missed diagnoses.

The specific signs of lung ultrasound to diagnose pulmonary hemorrhage of the newborns: Evidence from a multicenter retrospective case-control study

“…Forty-two consecutive infants with PH from May 2017 to December 2021 were included in this study. According to our clinical practice and literatures, the PH, pneumonia and meconium aspiration syndrome (MAS) can have some similar ultrasound manifestations, such as lung consolidation with air bronchograms (12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17). Therefore, to determine whether some of the ultrasound findings are specific to PH or not, the controls will include three subgroups, that were pneumonia group, MAS group and normal lungs, respectively.…”