key: cord-0978628-jnecak0g authors: Antúnez-Montes, O.Y.; Buonsenso, D. title: Routine use of Point-of-Care lung ultrasound during the COVID-19 pandemic date: 2022-01-03 journal: Med Intensiva (Engl Ed) DOI: 10.1016/j.medine.2020.04.013 sha: 41738746cfe6d15d847f628eb10368e2c699f92d doc_id: 978628 cord_uid: jnecak0g nan Currently, many studies have shown the superiority of lung ultrasound as an auxiliary tool to diagnoses in several respiratory diseases, such as those triggered by SARS-CoV-2. This ought to be stated: lung ultrasound leads to higher diagnostic accuracy than to what auscultations and X-rays allow. A representative article 1 showed how the specificity, the sensibility and the diagnostic accuracy achieved during a lung ultrasound surpassed 93% in all parameters whereas auscultations and X-rays yield variable and littlesupported data. Ultrasound is considered to be the fifth pillar of physical examinations, 2 and there is an open debate on whether ultrasound should replace stethoscopes in certain scenarios. 3 This same scenario has been shown to happen in echocardiography, where medical students who have trained to recognize cardiovascular disease showed a greater accuracy in their diagnoses using pocket ultra-sounds than a trained cardiologist using a traditional physical examination. 4 We would like to strongly encourage the medical community to not rely solely on auscultation in patients with dyspnea, reduce their use of X-rays and do selective CT scans in this pandemic. It has been shown that lung ultrasound at the point of care has diminished the use of thorax X-rays by 26%, and a 47% in the use of CT scans that show significant statistical results. 5 Examining a patient in an intensive care unit (ICU) is done by one person, who both explores and controls image capturing. However, this dynamic is not recommended in the context of SARS-CoV-2. In this case, the exploration carried out in pairs is recommended. They will aid and assist the patient and their environment with the necessary personal protective equipment. An explorer (the professional with the most experience and skill) will manipulate the probe, the gel, and the patient, whereas the second one will only control the commands and the screen, recording images and videos alongside the explorer, who will observe and direct. This second participant should not interact with the patient or the https://doi.org/10.1016/j.medin.2020.04.010 0210-5691/© 2020 Elsevier España, S.L.U. y SEMICYUC. All rights reserved. 2173-5727 objects around them, minimizing the chance for nosocomial and fomite transmission. The pocket equipment should be placed in protective covers (phones, tablets, probes). Cleaning should be done in proximal-to-distal sweeps without zigzagging. The same procedure should be performed after each new patient. 6 Gel must be used carefully in order to prevent its contamination and further dissemination of the virus. Allocating a specific amount of gel for each patient is also recommended, since it prevents the patient's skin, the bottle, and the probe from touching each other. The thorax will be explored from three different angles by hemithorax (the anterior, lateral, and posterior faces) and in six different segments (Anterior: superior/inferior; Lateral: superior/inferior. Posterior: superior/middle/ inferior). These are fourteen segments in total. The sweep will be performed from median to lateral and downward, placing the probe both transversely and longitudinally, with one mark pointing to the head and in medial position. The findings should be registered according to the segment and the intercostal space in which they were found. The thorax is limited to two faces depending on the patient's position (anterior/posterior) the lateral sides can be explored as well (superior and inferior). The BLUE protocol 7 is a standardized diagram for the rapid identification of the causes of dyspnea. It shows six persistent pathologies in around 97% (pulmonary edema, pneumonia, pulmonary embolism, COPD, asthma, pneumothorax) of the adult patients that are admitted into hospitals with dyspnea and then progressed into the ICU, the remaining 3% belongs to more rare diseases; the BLUE patterns related to COVID 19 are: The main ultrasound findings reported are summarized in (Table 1 ). Danilo Buonsenso reported 6 an irregular pleural line with small sub pleural consolidations both in the anterior and posterior thorax, a great presence of vertical artifacts, several areas of preserved tissue mixed with sick tissue, and some typical images of interstitial alveolar damage (the same present in some Chinese patients), 8 who also reported to have diminished local blood flow, as observed by Doppler. 9 Add a transverse probe rotation improves the visualization of consolidations increasing in the number of signs visualized (greater length of pleura visualized and constant). One limitation is the detection of deep lesions due to the blockage of the sonic transmission in an aerated lung, however, makes an excellent tool to observe sub pleural lesions, and vertical artifacts, since most reported cases show that the posterior-inferior fields of the lung are focal points for the disease. If the pneumonia extends beyond the pleural line and the ultrasound does not provide enough clarity in order to understand the clinical course of the disease, a thorax CT scan will be needed. The ultrasound patterns found in the course of COVID-19 were significantly different to those of other lesions reported in the literature. 10 This system will be useful in emerging economies or systems lacking resources, avoiding the saturation of medical services; it is based on an intuitive triage by virtue of the several ultrasound patterns related to COVID-19 (Fig. 1) . POCUS triage can help professionals pick out low-risk (green) cases at first contact, which can lead to considering them ''negative by lung ultrasound'' get the test and the subject can be put in isolation; those ''suggestive or positive by lung ultrasound'' (yellow and red) with abnormal patterns ought to be early admitted into ER or ICU. This system allows professionals to determine the severity even at an out-ofhospital phase due to the acknowledgment of any suggestive imaging highly suspicious of severity. With portable or pocket devices at the patient's bedside the exploration allows re-asses in real time the condition of the critically ill in the ICU reducing time, money and the risk to a nosocomial exposure to the virus through the portable X-ray machines or in non-selective transport to CT scan room. O.Y. Antúnez-Montes and D. Buonsenso The present manuscript received no funding. The authors declare no conflict of interest. Comparative diagnostic performances of auscultation, chest radiography, and lung ultrasonography in acute respiratory distress syndrome Time to add a fifth pillar to bedside physical examination: inspection, palpation, percussion auscultation, and insonation Should the ultrasound probe replace your stethoscope? A SICS-I sub-study comparing lung ultrasound and pulmonary auscultation in the critically ill Comparison of effectiveness of hand-carried ultrasound to bedside cardiovascular physical examination The use of point-of-care bedside lung ultrasound significantly reduces the number of radiographs and computed tomography scans in critically ill patients Point-of-Care Lung Ultrasound findings in novel coronavirus disease-19 pnemoniae: a case report and potential applications during COVID-19 outbreak Novel approaches to ultrasonography of the lung and pleural space: where are we now? Breathe (Sheff) Findings of lung ultrasonography of novel coronavirus pneumonia during the 2019-2020 epidemic A preliminary study on the ultrasonic manifestations of peripulmonary lesions of non-critical novel coronavirus pneumonia (COVID-19). Res Square Consensus on severe diseases from Chinese ultrasound experts Sergio Omar Paz Ortega, for the revision of the original manuscript from which this point of view derives.