The Role of Ultrasound in Diagnosing Community-Acquired Pneumonia

Abstract

BACKGROUND The literature review is devoted to an urgent problem of the diagnosis of pneumonia in the practice of an anesthesiologist-resuscitator using ultrasound. The literature review describes the methodological foundations of this method, its advantages and disadvantages, sensitivity and specificity for the diagnosis of severe community-acquired pneumonia in the practice of an anesthesiologist-resuscitator.AIM OF STUDY The analysis of the most modern domestic and foreign evidence base based on the information content of lung ultrasound in CAP in the practice of an anesthesiologist-resuscitator.MATERIAL AND METHODS Russian publications were searched in the elibrary.ru database, foreign publications were searched in the PubMed database. Publications (literature reviews, observational studies, double-blind randomized trials) were searched for the period 2010–2020. A total of 1379 publications were initially selected, identified through database searches. After removing duplicates, the number of publications was reduced to 695. Of this number, 503 publications were excluded. The remaining 192 full-text articles were evaluated for text acceptability. Due to inconsistency with the main sections of the review, 77 articles were deleted from them. The remaining 115 ones were included in the qualitative synthesis and 67 ones were selected in the quantitative synthesis.RESULTS The ultrasound is a promising and worthy alternative to other imaging modalities. According to the results chest X-ray was inferior to lung ultrasound in diagnosing the presence of fluid in the pleural cavities. The sensitivity of ultrasound in assessing pleural effusion reaches 100%, the specificity is 99.7%. Pulmonary ultrasonography plays an important role in the diagnosis of pneumonia and is a promising alternative to chest X-ray and chest CT.DISCUSSION Since POCUS is performed at the patient’s bedside, the results are available to the doctor in real time, which helps in diagnosis and treatment. Sequential examinations can be performed to monitor disease progression and response to treatment. However, many facilities do not have the ability to store ultrasound images, so other healthcare professionals cannot see them.FINDINGS The ultrasound examination of the lungs is unlikely to replace computed tomography of the chest, as it does not have 100% specificity, however, it is indispensable in bedside examination and is the doctor’s sonographic “stethoscope”, which significantly expands diagnostic capabilities.