Ultrasound effective as X-ray in detecting pneumonia

Ultrasound may be as accurate as chest X-ray in detecting pneumonia in children, according to study findings presented at the 2014 European Society for Pediatric Infectious Diseases Annual Meeting.

Lilliam Ambroggio, PhD, MPH, from the divisions of hospital medicine and biostatistics and epidemiology at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, and colleagues compared chest ultrasound and X-ray findings of 132 patients with a mean age of 5.3 years to a computed tomography reference standard. Study participants were admitted to the hospital with a respiratory condition or ordered to have a computed tomography.

Researchers found that ultrasound identified more true positive results and less true negative results than chest X-rays. Ultrasound was more sensitive and less specific in detecting consolidations and pleural effusions than chest X-rays. Overall, the two techniques were statistically equivalent.

“The advent of ultrasound technology in the diagnosis of pneumonia in developing countries is potentially easier to establish as the infrastructure needed to perform and interpret a chest ultrasound is much less than what is needed to perform a chest radiograph,” Ambroggio said in a press release from the European Society for Pediatric Infectious Diseases.

For more information:

Ambroggio L. Abstract #450. Presented at: ESPID 2014; May 6-10, 2014; Dublin, Ireland.

Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.