Portable US Valuable for Evaluation of Patients with Heart Failure
A study published in The American Journal of Emergency Medicine describes use of portable ultrasound as a diagnostic tool to evaluate the lungs of patients with heart failure. This diagnostic modality can assess the degree of pulmonary congestion.
A research team from Torino, Italy examined use of such in in a cohort of 70 patients, all who had acute decompensated heart failure. The current diagnostic test employed is either CT scan or chest x-ray. Patients were evaluated with transthoracic ultrasound at the time of admission and then again approximately 4.2 days later after being treated for the heart failure.
Data collected from the bedside ultrasound included multiple B lines, which is a supposed sign of pulmonary congestion, on the five anterolateral thoracic ultrasound exams completed for each patient’s left side and the six from the right.
All patients had multiple B lines on the scans completed at time of admission. The average number of scans completed per patient with B lines was eight. After undergoing treatment, the median number of scans decreased to zero though the range was between zero and seven.
The ultrasound scans were correlated with findings from x-ray studies. Scores were given for both the presence and number of B lines. These scores correlated positively with findings from x-ray indicating plasma brain natriuretic peptide improvement, extravascular lung water, and improvement clinically.
Based on these findings, the researchers suggest that bedside ultrasound is a reliable diagnostic modality to monitor patients with pulmonary congestion who are undergoing treatment for acute decompensated heart failure.
June 27, 2008 Related topics: Imaging, Diagnostic, Radiology, Cardiology