Lung ultrasound in diagnosis and follow up of community acquired pneumonia in infants younger than 1-year old.

BACKGROUND: Pneumonia is still a leading cause of illness and death in infants worldwide. Lung ultrasound (LUS) is emerging as an extremely valuable non-ionizing radiation diagnostic tool in diagnosis and follow up of multiple paediatric pulmonary diseases.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the applicability of LUS in diagnosis and follow up of community acquired pneumonia (CAP) in Egyptian infants younger than 1-year old.

METHODS: LUS and chest X-ray (CXR) were performed in 50 infants presented with clinical symptoms and signs suggestive of CAP within the first 6 hours of admission in our inpatient department, then follow up LUS was performed 5 days after admission.

RESULTS: This study showed that LUS was superior to CXR in initial diagnosis of CAP in infants. LUS detected pneumonia in 49 (98%) compared to 36 (72%) infants diagnosed by CXR (P < .05). On follow up, 5 days later, consolidation patch disappeared in 13 (26.5%) infants, diminished in size in 27 (55.1%) infants, remained at the same size in 2 (4.1%) infants and increased in size in 7 (14.3%) infants.

CONCLUSION: This study showed that LUS is superior to CXR in diagnosing infants with CAP who are younger than 1-year old. It also serves as a safe follow up tool and could support the decision of hospital discharge in this category of patients. Further studies with larger sample size and longer follow up duration are recommended to confirm the results of the present study.