Comparative analysis of chest radiography and lung ultrasound to predict intra-hospital prognosis of patients admitted for acute SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia (COVID-19)

BACKGROUND: Point of care lung ultrasound (POCUS) has been recently used to assess prognosis in COVID-19 patients. However, there are no data comparing POCUS and chest-X ray, a technique widely used. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Retrospective analysis in stable COVID-19 patients. Schalekamp radiological lung scale and LUZ-Score ultrasound scale were compared. Primary end-point was in-hospital death and/or need for Intensive Care Unit admission. RESULTS: A total of 138 patients were included. Median Schalekamp scale was 2 (2) and median LUZ-Score scale was 21 (10). No significant correlation was observed between both techniques. Patients with a LUZ-Score ≥ 21 points at admission had worse lung function and higher concentrations of LDH, CRP and Interleuquine-6. Schalekamp scale failed to identify patients at a higher risk at admission for the primary end-point. Addition of POCUS to a previous clinical model, improved risk prediction (AUC 0.805 [95% CI: 0.662−0.948]; P = <0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Chest X-ray and POCUS showed no correlation at admission in this analysis. Only POCUS identified a group of patients with greater clinical and analytical involvement. POCUS improved, previous clinical model, while chest X-ray did not add relevant predictive information for the primary endpoint.