Lung ultrasound may support internal medicine physicians in predicting the diagnosis, bacterial etiology and favorable outcome of community-acquired pneumonia

AbstractTo assess the usefulness of lung ultrasound (LUS) for identifying community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) among adult patients with suspected lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI) and for discriminating between CAP with different cultural statuses, etiologies, and outcomes. LUS was performed at internal medicine ward admission. The performance of chest X-ray (CXR) and LUS in diagnosing CAP in 410 patients with suspected LRTI was determined. All possible positive results for pneumonia on LUS were condensed into pattern 1 (consolidation + / − alveolar-interstitial syndrome) and pattern 2 (alveolar-interstitial syndrome). The performance of LUS in predicting culture-positive status, bacterial etiology, and adverse outcomes of CAP was assessed in 315 patients. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for diagnosing CAP by LUS was significantly higher than for diagnosis CAP by CXR (0.93 and 0.71, respectively; p < 0.001). Pattern 1 predicted CAP with bacterial and mixed bacterial and viral etiologies with positive predictive values of 99% (95% CI, 94–100%) and 97% (95% CI, 81–99%), respectively. Pattern 2 ruled out mortality with a negative predictive value of 95% (95% CI, 86–98%), respectively. In this study, LUS was useful in predicting a diagnosis of CAP, the bacterial etiology of CAP, and favorable outcome in patients with CAP.

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Predictive value of the neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio for disease deterioration and serious adverse outcomes in patients with COVID-19: a prospective cohort study

BMC Infectious Diseases ◽

10.1186/s12879-021-05796-3 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Zhi-Yong Zeng ◽

Shao-Dan Feng ◽

Gong-Ping Chen ◽

Jiang-Nan Wu

Keyword(s):

Cohort Study ◽

Hospital Admission ◽

Clinical Outcomes ◽

Prospective Cohort Study ◽

Prospective Cohort ◽

Characteristic Curve ◽

Adverse Outcomes ◽

Neutrophil To Lymphocyte Ratio ◽

Predictive Values ◽

Lymphocyte Ratio

Abstract Background Early identification of patients who are at high risk of poor clinical outcomes is of great importance in saving the lives of patients with novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the context of limited medical resources. Objective To evaluate the value of the neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR), calculated at hospital admission and in isolation, for the prediction of the subsequent presence of disease progression and serious clinical outcomes (e.g., shock, death). Methods We designed a prospective cohort study of 352 hospitalized patients with COVID-19 between January 9 and February 26, 2020, in Yichang City, Hubei Province. Patients with an NLR equal to or higher than the cutoff value derived from the receiver operating characteristic curve method were classified as the exposed group. The primary outcome was disease deterioration, defined as an increase of the clinical disease severity classification during hospitalization (e.g., moderate to severe/critical; severe to critical). The secondary outcomes were shock and death during the treatment. Results During the follow-up period, 51 (14.5%) patients’ conditions deteriorated, 15 patients (4.3%) had complicated septic shock, and 15 patients (4.3%) died. The NLR was higher in patients with deterioration than in those without deterioration (median: 5.33 vs. 2.14, P < 0.001), and higher in patients with serious clinical outcomes than in those without serious clinical outcomes (shock vs. no shock: 6.19 vs. 2.25, P < 0.001; death vs. survival: 7.19 vs. 2.25, P < 0.001). The NLR measured at hospital admission had high value in predicting subsequent disease deterioration, shock and death (all the areas under the curve > 0.80). The sensitivity of an NLR ≥ 2.6937 for predicting subsequent disease deterioration, shock and death was 82.0% (95% confidence interval, 69.0 to 91.0), 93.3% (68.0 to 100), and 92.9% (66.0 to 100), and the corresponding negative predictive values were 95.7% (93.0 to 99.2), 99.5% (98.6 to 100) and 99.5% (98.6 to 100), respectively. Conclusions The NLR measured at admission and in isolation can be used to effectively predict the subsequent presence of disease deterioration and serious clinical outcomes in patients with COVID-19.

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Early identification of severe community-acquired pneumonia: a retrospective observational study

BMJ Open Respiratory Research ◽

10.1136/bmjresp-2019-000438 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

pp. e000438 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Frances S Grudzinska ◽

Kerrie Aldridge ◽

Sian Hughes ◽

Peter Nightingale ◽

Dhruv Parekh ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Early Warning ◽

Assessment Tool ◽

Characteristic Curve ◽

Community Acquired Pneumonia ◽

Adverse Outcomes ◽

Assessment Tools ◽

Early Warning Score ◽

News Medium ◽

Increased Risk ◽

Early Warning Scores

BackgroundCommunity-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is a leading cause of sepsis worldwide. Prompt identification of those at high risk of adverse outcomes improves survival by enabling early escalation of care. There are multiple severity assessment tools recommended for risk stratification; however, there is no consensus as to which tool should be used for those with CAP. We sought to assess whether pneumonia-specific, generic sepsis or early warning scores were most accurate at predicting adverse outcomes.MethodsWe performed a retrospective analysis of all cases of CAP admitted to a large, adult tertiary hospital in the UK between October 2014 and January 2016. All cases of CAP were eligible for inclusion and were reviewed by a senior respiratory physician to confirm the diagnosis. The association between the CURB65, Lac-CURB-65, quick Sequential (Sepsis-related) Organ Failure Assessment tool (qSOFA) score and National Early Warning Score (NEWS) at the time of admission and outcome measures including intensive care admission, length of hospital stay, in-hospital, 30-day, 90-day and 365-day all-cause mortality was assessed.Results1545 cases were included with 30-day mortality of 19%. Increasing score was significantly associated with increased risk of poor outcomes for all four tools. Overall accuracy assessed by receiver operating characteristic curve analysis was significantly greater for the CURB65 and Lac-CURB-65 scores than qSOFA. At admission, a CURB65 ≥2, Lac-CURB-65 ≥moderate, qSOFA ≥2 and NEWS ≥medium identified 85.0%, 96.4%, 40.3% and 79.0% of those who died within 30 days, respectively. A Lac-CURB-65 ≥moderate had the highest negative predictive value: 95.6%.ConclusionAll four scoring systems can stratify according to increasing risk in CAP; however, when a confident diagnosis of pneumonia can be made, these data support the use of pneumonia-specific tools rather than generic sepsis or early warning scores.

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Development and evaluation of an artificial intelligence system for COVID-19 diagnosis

Nature Communications ◽

10.1038/s41467-020-18685-1 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Cheng Jin ◽

Weixiang Chen ◽

Yukun Cao ◽

Zhanwei Xu ◽

Zimeng Tan ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Artificial Intelligence ◽

Influenza A ◽

Operating Characteristic ◽

Characteristic Curve ◽

Community Acquired Pneumonia ◽

Intelligence System ◽

Challenging Tasks ◽

Chest X Ray ◽

Detailed Interpretation ◽

Timely Treatment

Abstract Early detection of COVID-19 based on chest CT enables timely treatment of patients and helps control the spread of the disease. We proposed an artificial intelligence (AI) system for rapid COVID-19 detection and performed extensive statistical analysis of CTs of COVID-19 based on the AI system. We developed and evaluated our system on a large dataset with more than 10 thousand CT volumes from COVID-19, influenza-A/B, non-viral community acquired pneumonia (CAP) and non-pneumonia subjects. In such a difficult multi-class diagnosis task, our deep convolutional neural network-based system is able to achieve an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of 97.81% for multi-way classification on test cohort of 3,199 scans, AUC of 92.99% and 93.25% on two publicly available datasets, CC-CCII and MosMedData respectively. In a reader study involving five radiologists, the AI system outperforms all of radiologists in more challenging tasks at a speed of two orders of magnitude above them. Diagnosis performance of chest x-ray (CXR) is compared to that of CT. Detailed interpretation of deep network is also performed to relate system outputs with CT presentations. The code is available at https://github.com/ChenWWWeixiang/diagnosis_covid19.

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Effectiveness of Lung Ultrasound in Comparison with Chest X-Ray in Diagnosis of Lung Consolidation

Open Access Macedonian Journal of Medical Sciences ◽

10.3889/oamjms.2019.669 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 7 (15) ◽

pp. 2457-2461

Author(s):

Youssef Ibrahim Haggag ◽

Karim Mashhour ◽

Kamal Ahmed ◽

Nael Samir ◽

Waheed Radwan

Keyword(s):

Lung Ultrasound ◽

Community Acquired Pneumonia ◽

P Value ◽

Initial Examination ◽

X Ray ◽

Chest Ultrasound ◽

Lung Consolidation ◽

Plain Chest ◽

Chest X Ray

BACKGROUND: Lung ultrasound (US) is an available and inexpensive tool for the diagnosis of community-acquired pneumonia (CAP); it which has no hazards of radiation and can be easily used. AIM: To evaluate the efficacy of lung ultrasound in the diagnosis and follow-up of CAP. PATIENTS AND METHODS: 100 patients aged from 40 to 63 years with a mean age of 52.3 ± 10 years admitted to the Critical Care Department, Cairo University with pictures of CAP. Lung US was performed for all patients initially, then a plain chest X-ray (CXR) was performed. Another lung ultrasound was performed on the 10th day after admission. RESULTS: Initial chest X-ray was correlated with the initial chest ultrasound examination in CAP diagnosis (R-value = 0.629, P < 0.001). Cohen's κ was run to determine if there is an agreement between the findings of the initial chest X-ray findings and those of the initial chest ultrasound in CAP diagnosis. A moderate agreement was found where κ = .567 (95% CI, 0.422 to 0.712) and P < 0.001. Upon initial examination, the CXR diagnosed CAP in 48.0% of patients, while lung US diagnosed the disease in 70% of patients. Moreover, lung US was more sensitive than CXR (P-value < 0.001). Compared to the accuracy of computed tomography (CT) chest (100%) which is the gold standard for CAP diagnosis, the accuracy of lung US was 95.0%, while the accuracy of CXR was 81.0%. CONCLUSION: This study proved the effectiveness of lung ultrasound in CAP diagnosis.

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Diagnostic performance and clinical implications of rapid SARS-CoV-2 antigen testing in Mexico using real-world nationwide COVID-19 registry data

PLoS ONE ◽

10.1371/journal.pone.0256447 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 16 (8) ◽

pp. e0256447

Author(s):

Omar Yaxmehen Bello-Chavolla ◽

Neftali Eduardo Antonio-Villa ◽

Luisa Fernández-Chirino ◽

Enrique C. Guerra ◽

Carlos A. Fermín-Martínez ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Symptom Onset ◽

Diagnostic Performance ◽

Large Scale ◽

Characteristic Curve ◽

False Negative ◽

High Specificity ◽

Adverse Outcomes ◽

Clinical Implications ◽

Predictive Values ◽

Qrt Pcr

Background SARS-CoV-2 testing capacity is important to monitor epidemic dynamics and as a mitigation strategy. Given difficulties of large-scale quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) implementation, rapid antigen tests (Rapid Ag-T) have been proposed as alternatives in settings like Mexico. Here, we evaluated diagnostic performance of Rapid Ag-T for SARS-CoV-2 infection and its associated clinical implications compared to qRT-PCR testing in Mexico. Methods We analyzed data from the COVID-19 registry of the Mexican General Directorate of Epidemiology up to April 30th, 2021 (n = 6,632,938) and cases with both qRT-PCR and Rapid Ag-T (n = 216,388). We evaluated diagnostic performance using accuracy measures and assessed time-dependent changes in the Area Under the Receiver Operating Characteristic curve (AUROC). We also explored test discordances as predictors of hospitalization, intubation, severe COVID-19 and mortality. Results Rapid Ag-T is primarily used in Mexico City. Rapid Ag-T have low sensitivity 37.6% (95%CI 36.6–38.7), high specificity 95.5% (95%CI 95.1–95.8) and acceptable positive 86.1% (95%CI 85.0–86.6) and negative predictive values 67.2% (95%CI 66.2–69.2). Rapid Ag-T has optimal diagnostic performance up to days 3 after symptom onset, and its performance is modified by testing location, comorbidity, and age. qRT-PCR (-) / Rapid Ag-T (+) cases had higher risk of adverse COVID-19 outcomes (HR 1.54 95% CI 1.41–1.68) and were older, qRT-PCR (+)/ Rapid Ag-T(-) cases had slightly higher risk or adverse outcomes and ≥7 days from symptom onset (HR 1.53 95% CI 1.48–1.59). Cases detected with rapid Ag-T were younger, without comorbidities, and milder COVID-19 course. Conclusions Rapid Ag-T could be used as an alternative to qRT-PCR for large scale SARS-CoV-2 testing in Mexico. Interpretation of Rapid Ag-T results should be done with caution to minimize the risk associated with false negative results.

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Lung ultrasound for the diagnosis of community-acquired pneumonia in children: comparison with chest X-ray

10.1183/13993003.congress-2020.5287 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Silvia Bloise ◽

Domenico P La Regina ◽

Elio Iovine ◽

Cristina Latini ◽

Ambra Nicolai ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Lung Ultrasound ◽

Community Acquired Pneumonia ◽

X Ray ◽

Chest X Ray

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A Lung Ultrasound Severity Score Predicts Chronic Lung Disease in Preterm Infants

American Journal of Perinatology ◽

10.1055/s-0038-1676975 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 36 (13) ◽

pp. 1357-1361 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Mohamed Abdelmawla ◽

Deepak Louis ◽

Michael Narvey ◽

Yasser Elsayed

Keyword(s):

Lung Disease ◽

Preterm Infants ◽

Sensitivity And Specificity ◽

Gestational Age ◽

Chronic Lung Disease ◽

Severity Score ◽

Lung Ultrasound ◽

Characteristic Curve ◽

Preterm Neonates ◽

Predictive Values

Objective To test the hypothesis that a lung ultrasound severity score (LUSsc) can predict the development of chronic lung disease (CLD) in preterm neonates. Study Design Preterm infants <30 weeks' gestational age were enrolled in this study. Lung ultrasound (LUS) was performed between 1 and 9 postnatal weeks. All ultrasound studies were done assessing three lung zones on each lung. Each zone was given a score between 0 and 3. A receiver operating characteristic curve was constructed to assess the ability of LUSsc to predict CLD. Results We studied 27 infants at a median (interquartile range [IQR]) gestational age and birth weight of 26 weeks (25–29) and 780 g (530–1,045), respectively. Median (IQR) postnatal age at the time of LUS studies was 5 (2–8) weeks. Fourteen infants who developed CLD underwent 34 studies. Thirteen infants without CLD underwent 30 studies. Those who developed CLD had a higher LUSsc than those who did not (median [IQR] of scores: 9 [6–12] vs. 3 [1–4], p < 0.0001). An LUSsc cutoff of 6 has a sensitivity and specificity of 76 and 97% and positive and negative predictive values of 95 and 82%, respectively. Adding gestational age < 27 weeks improved sensitivity and specificity to 86 and 98% and positive and negative predictive values to 97 and 88%. Conclusion LUSsc between 2 and 8 weeks can predict development of CLD in preterm neonates.

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Role of lung ultrasound in identifying COVID-19 pneumonia in patients with negative swab during the outbreak

Emergency Care Journal ◽

10.4081/ecj.2020.9026 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 16 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Giuseppe Aiosa ◽

Romina Gianfreda ◽

Marco Pastorino ◽

Piero Davio

Keyword(s):

Internal Medicine ◽

Lung Ultrasound ◽

False Negative ◽

Nasopharyngeal Swab ◽

Internal Medicine Ward ◽

X Ray ◽

Ultrasound Findings ◽

Chest X Ray ◽

Critical Patients

Lung ultrasound is a reasonable tool for detection of manifestations of COVID-19, to facilitate the division of patients flow of infected with SARS-CoV-2 from those affected by other pathologies. Often, a reason for the incorrect separation of the flows is the possibility of false-negative rRT-PCR results. We aimed to evaluate the advantages of performing Lung Ultrasound (LUS) in patients with a negative swab, to confirm the suspicious of COVID-19 at the bedside, according to the recent findings of typical lung ultrasound lesions of COVID19 related pneumonia. We analyzed 11 non-critical patients admitted to Emergency Department in the Internal Medicine ward, during outbreak, as Covid-19 negative patients affected by pneumonia. The result of the ultrasound findings conditioned the consequent allocation of the patient. 9/11 patients had typical LUS findings for COVID-19, but only 3/11 patients had a second positive nasopharyngeal swab, and 2/11 had positive swab on pleural fluid. 6/11 patients remained negative with strongly suspicious LUS lesions, and so treated and isolated as Covid-19 positive. 2/11 had negative swab and none LUS findings, thus treated as affected by other pathologies. These findings clearly show how LUS plays an important role together with the chest x-ray in identifying patients with interstitial pneumonia from COVID-19.

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Predictive value of the neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio for disease deterioration and serious adverse outcomes in patients with COVID-19: a prospective cohort study

10.21203/rs.3.rs-47856/v3 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Zhi-Yong Zeng ◽

Shao-Dan Feng ◽

Gong-Ping Chen ◽

Jiang-Nan Wu

Keyword(s):

Cohort Study ◽

Hospital Admission ◽

Clinical Outcomes ◽

Prospective Cohort Study ◽

Prospective Cohort ◽

Characteristic Curve ◽

Adverse Outcomes ◽

Neutrophil To Lymphocyte Ratio ◽

Predictive Values ◽

Lymphocyte Ratio

Abstract Background: Early identification of patients who are at high risk of poor clinical outcomes is of great importance in saving the lives of patients with novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the context of limited medical resources.Objective: To evaluate the value of the neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR), calculated at hospital admission and in isolation, for the prediction of the subsequent presence of disease progression and serious clinical outcomes (e.g., shock, death).Methods: We designed a prospective cohort study of 352 hospitalized patients with COVID-19 between January 9 and February 26, 2020, in Yichang City, Hubei Province. Patients with an NLR equal to or higher than the cutoff value derived from the receiver operating characteristic curve method were classified as the exposed group. The primary outcome was disease deterioration, defined as an increase of the clinical disease severity classification during hospitalization (e.g., moderate to severe/critical; severe to critical). The secondary outcomes were shock and death during the treatment.Results: During the follow-up period, 51 (14.5%) patients’ conditions deteriorated, 15 patients (4.3%) had complicated septic shock, and 15 patients (4.3%) died. The NLR was higher in patients with deterioration than in those without deterioration (median: 5.33 vs. 2.14, P <0.001), and higher in patients with serious clinical outcomes than in those without serious clinical outcomes (shock vs. no shock: 6.19 vs. 2.25, P <0.001; death vs. survival: 7.19 vs. 2.25, P <0.001). The NLR measured at hospital admission had high value in predicting subsequent disease deterioration, shock and death (all the areas under the curve > 0.80). The sensitivity of an NLR ≥ 2.6937 for predicting subsequent disease deterioration, shock and death was 82.0% (95% confidence interval, 69.0 to 91.0), 93.3% (68.0 to 100), and 92.9% (66.0 to 100), and the corresponding negative predictive values were 95.7% (93.0 to 99.2), 99.5% (98.6 to 100) and 99.5% (98.6 to 100), respectively.Conclusions: The NLR measured at admission and in isolation can be used to effectively predict the subsequent presence of disease deterioration and serious clinical outcomes in patients with COVID-19.

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