Background: Pneumonia is one of the most common diseases with a high hospitalization rate and is potentially life threatening. The most frequent pneumonia consequence is pneumonic pleural effusion. The gold standard for diagnosis is a chest computed tomography (CT), but it is not always available, expensive, and difficult to perform, especially in an intensive care unit (ICU) if the patient is on mechanical ventilation. An effective bedside approach for identifying pneumonia and its consequences is chest ultrasonography (US). The aim of this study is assessment the value of chest ultrasound in early diagnosis of pneumonia and parapneumonic pleural effusion in comparison to CT Chest among respiratory ICU patients.
Patients and Methods: Forty patients suspected to have pneumonia from Zagazig University Hospitals (ZUH) at Respiratory ICU were enrolled in this study. Chest US and chest CT were done on the 1st day of admission and interpretations of these results were compared.
Results: There was no significant difference between Chest U/S and Chest CT in detecting pneumonia where 39 patient (97.5 % ) had positive signs of pneumonia by chest U/S compared to 100% by Chest CT. Chest ultrasound had a sensitivity of 97.5 %, specificity of 100% and accuracy of 97.5% in diagnosis of pneumonia. Chest ultrasound had a sensitivity of 100 %, specificity of 100% and accuracy of 100% in diagnosis of pleural effusion.
Conclusion: Chest ultrasound is sensitive for early detection of pneumonias as well as detection of any minimal amount of associated parapneumonic pleural effusion.