Point-of-care Lung Ultrasound Is Useful to Evaluate Emergency Department Patients for COVID-19.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) can be a life-threatening lung disease or a trivial upper respiratory infection depending on whether the alveoli are involved. Emergency department (ED) evaluation of symptomatic patients with normal vital signs is frequently limited to chest auscultation and oro-nasopharyngeal swabs. We tested the null hypothesis that patients being screened for COVID-19 in the ED with normal vital signs and without hypoxia would have a point-of-care lung ultrasound (LUS) consistent with COVID-19 less than 2% of the time.

Methods

We performed a retrospective, structured, blinded ultrasound review and chart review in patients 14 years or older with symptoms prompting ED evaluation for COVID-19. We excluded those with known congestive heart fai

SUBMITTER: Walsh P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7673866 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature