Yes, and no — evidence on lung ultrasound digested

Excerpt

Jovan Lovrenski [1] and Paolo Tomà [2] have reviewed the body of literature concerning lung ultrasound in children, and they have arrived at completely different conclusions. Dr. Tomà argues that diagnostics cannot rely on artefacts — in this context, A-lines and B-lines — because these are ultimately dependent on probes and scanners. The reader may object that established diagnostic processes do rely — at least in part — on artefacts (acoustic shadowing, reverberation artefact, twinkle artefact, and so on). Dr. Lovrenski, on the other hand, relies fundamentally on published accuracy studies, many of which do demonstrate reasonably good diagnostic performance of lung ultrasound. In this respect, the reader may argue that most of the studies were conducted by enthusiasts in fairly well-defined cohorts with dichotomous diagnostic outcomes. …