Lung Ultrasonography Is an Acceptable Imaging Modality to Diagnose COVID-19 and Effectively Correlates with HRCT Chest-A Prospective Study

Muiez Bashir; Wani Inzamam; Mohd Kamran Banday; Sheikh Riaz Rasool; Mudasir Hamid Bhat; Carmen Vladulescu; Fahad A Al-Misned; Hamed A El-Serehy

doi:10.3390/diagnostics13122091

Lung Ultrasonography Is an Acceptable Imaging Modality to Diagnose COVID-19 and Effectively Correlates with HRCT Chest-A Prospective Study

Diagnostics (Basel). 2023 Jun 16;13(12):2091. doi: 10.3390/diagnostics13122091.

Authors

Muiez Bashir¹, Wani Inzamam¹, Mohd Kamran Banday², Sheikh Riaz Rasool¹, Mudasir Hamid Bhat¹, Carmen Vladulescu³, Fahad A Al-Misned⁴, Hamed A El-Serehy⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Radiology, Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences Soura, Jammu & Kashmir, Srinagar 190011, India.
² Department of General Surgery, Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences Soura, Jammu & Kashmir, Srinagar 190011, India.
³ Department of Biology and Environmental Engineering, University of Craiova, 200585 Craiova, Romania.
⁴ Department of Zoology, College of Science, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia.

Abstract

It has been validated beyond doubt that High-Resolution Computed Tomography (HRCT) chest and to some extent chest radiographs have a role in corona virus disease-19 (COVID-19). Much less is known about the role of lung ultrasonography (LUS) in COVID-19. In this paper, our main purpose was to gauge the relationship between LUS and chest HRCT in reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) documented cases of COVID-19, as well as in those with high suspicion of COVID-19 with negative RT-PCR. It was a prospective study carried out at our tertiary care hospital, namely, SKIMS Soura. The total number of patients in this study were 152 (200 patients were selected out of which only 152 had undergone both LUS and chest HRCT). The patients were subjected to both LUS and chest HRCT. The radiologist who performed LUS was blinded to clinical findings and HRCT was evaluated by a radiologist with about a decade of experience. The LUS findings compatible with the disease were subpleural consolidations, B-lines and irregular pleural lines. Findings that were compatible with COVID-19 on chest HRCT were bibasilar, subpleural predominant ground glass opacities, crazy paving and consolidations. COVID-19-positive patients were taken up for chest HRCT for disease severity stratification and were also subjected to LUS. On HRCT chest, the imaging abnormalities compatible with COVID-19 were evident in 110 individuals (72.37%), and on Lung Ultrasound they were observed in 120 individuals (78.95%). Imaging of COVID-19 patients assessed by both LUS and HRCT chest,, showed a positive correlation (p < 0.0001). The study revealed a sensitivity of 88%, a specificity of 76.62%, a positive predictive value of 78.57% and a negative predictive value of 86.76%. None of the individuals with a diagnosis of COVID-19 on HRCT were missed on LUS. An excellent correlation was derived between the LUS score and CT total severity score (p < 0.0001 with a kappa of 0.431). Similar precision compared with chest HRCT in the detection of chest flaws in COVID-19 patients was obtained on LUS.

Keywords: COVID-19; HRCT; RT–PCR; diagnosis; disease; lung ultrasonography.

Grants and funding

This research received no external funding.