Chest ultrasonography as a replacement for chest radiography for community-acquired pneumonia

摘要

The recently published prospective study by Reissig et al in CHEST (October 2012) has suggested the use of lung ultrasound (LUS) for diagnosis and follow-up of community-acquired pneumonia. This is an innovative study with achievement of very good specificity and sensitivity by highly trained sonographers. Clearly, there are advantages to the use of LUS over chest radiography (CXR), specifically the lack of radiation, which would make this an attractive modality in children, women who are pregnant, and young female patients. In addition, LUS can detect other ancillary findings not always evident on the CXR as well as facilitating pleural sampling.