Background
Pulmonary embolism (PE) is an acute, significant, and life-threatening condition.
Transthoracic ultrasound (TUS) is one of the noninvasive diagnostic modalities
that has been presented for detection of numerous chest disorders as well as PE.
Objectives
The goal of this work was to estimate the accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity of
bedside TUS in PE detection.
Patients and methods
Fifty patients with moderate-to-high clinical suspicion of PE were examined by TUS.
Diagnosis of PE depended on clinical suspicion and was confirmed by computed
tomography pulmonary angiography.
Results
Most of the lesions related to PE and detected by US examination were on the
right side (60%) and posterior lower lobe (70%) with predominance of A profile.
Sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, negative, and positive predictive values of TUS in
diagnosis of PE were 93.3, 65, 82, 86.7, and 80%, respectively.
Conclusion
TUS is an important diagnostic tool as a noninvasive bedside test in detecting PE
principally for critically ill or unmoving patients with high sensitivity and moderate
specificity. |
