The Role of Lung Ultrasonography in Etiologic Diagnosis of Acute Dyspnea in a Resource Limited Setting

The aim of the current study was to describe lung ultrasonography (LUS) characteristics and to evaluate the agreement between LUS and chest radiography (CXR) in diagnosis of four conditions causing most acute dyspnea in children, namely, pneumonia, pleural effusion, pneumothorax and acute pulmonary edema in children at a teaching hospital in Vietnam. We reviewed the records of the chidren between January and June 2018, who presented to emergency department (ED) or pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) at children hospital 1 (CH1) with acute dyspnea and had final diagnosis of one of four etiologies including pneumonia, pleural effusion, pneumothorax and acute pulmonary edema. All patients underwent CXR and LUS at the time of admission. Eighty-one children with acute dyspnea including pneumonia (n=65, 80%), pleural effusion (n=9, 11%), pneumothorax (n=3, 4%) and acute pulmonary edema (n=4, 5%) were enrolled. LUS was identified among 100% of cases with pleural effusion and pneumothorax (CXR only showed 73.3% and 50%, respectively); 92.3% of cases with pneumonia (CXR showed 93.8%) and only 75% of cases with acute pulmonary edema (CXR showed 50%). When comparing LUS with CXR, we noticed a good agreeement between the 2 methods in the diagnosis of pneumonia (kappa=0.64, p<0.001). LUS was shown to be a feasible and non-invasive technique which can help clinicians to comfirm the etiology of acute pulmonary dyspnea.