A review of early experience in lung ultrasound (LUS) in the diagnosis and management of COVID-19

Sultan, Laith R; Sehgal, Chandra M

Abstract A novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) was identified as the cause of a cluster of pneumonia in Wuhan, China at the end of 2019. Since then more than four million confirmed cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have been reported around the globe. The current gold standard for etiological diagnosis is reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR) analysis of respiratory tract specimens, but the test has a high false-negative rate due to both nasopharyngeal swab sampling error and viral burden. Hence diagnostic imaging has emerged as a fundamental component of current management of COVID-19 patients. Currently, high-resolution computed tomography (CT) is the main imaging tool for primary diagnosis and evaluation of disease severity in patients. Lung ultrasound (LUS) imaging has become a safe bedside imaging alternative that does no expose the patient to radiation, and minimizes the risk of contamination. Although the number of studies to date are limited, LUS findings have demonstrated high diagnostic sensitivity and accuracy, comparable to those of chest CT scans. In this article we review the current state of art of LUS in evaluating pulmonary changes induced by COVID-19. The goal is to identify characteristic sonographic findings most suited for the diagnosis of COVID-19 pneumonia infections.