Introduction: Acute dyspnea is one of the most frequently observed symptoms in emergency departments, which can be caused mainly by pulmonary or cardiac system involvement. Bedside ultrasound is postulated as an innovative tool for basic use by the physician, which can complement the physical examination and quickly explore the integrity of thoracic structures
Objectives: To synthesize recent evidence on the use of bedside ultrasound in the evaluation of acute dyspnea
Materials and methods: A bibliographic search was carried out using search terms such as "Bedside Ultrasound" and "Acute Dyspnea", as well as synonyms, which were combined with Boolean operators, in the databases PubMed, ScienceDirect, Embase, EBSCO, and MEDLINE.
Results: During the literature review, 10 observational studies, 2 clinical trials and 2 systematic reviews met the inclusion criteria and were analyzed. The use of bedside ultrasound changes the main diagnosis associated with acute dyspnea in more than 60% of cases, the most frequent being acute decompensated heart failure and pneumonia. Protocols such as SEARCH 8Es for the evaluation of dyspnea in the emergency department, has a performance with sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive value parameters above 95%.
Conclusions: The current evidence on the use of bedside ultrasound in the management of patients with acute dyspnea in the emergency department is limited, Although the level of evidence is not the best, it suggests that this tool may promote the diagnostic perfomance of acute dyspnea of pulmonary or cardiac causes, improve the time to diagnosis, and enhance physician diagnostic confidence.