Neonatal lung ultrasound exam guidelines

Abstract

Point-of-care ultrasound (POC-US) is increasingly used especially in emergency and critical-care medicine. It is focused, quick and does not expose patients to ionizing radiation. It encompasses all organ systems and has well-defined indications. Lung ultrasound (LUS) represents one of the most exciting applications in the field of POC-US. It is particularly important to emphasize the role of LUS in neonatology due to the specific pathology inherent in lung immaturity as well as in the particular sensitivity of neonates to repeated radiation exposure. One of the main barriers to the more extensive use of the ultrasound technology is a lack of efficient and attractive training solutions followed by the structured quality-check assurance. In an effort to help bridge this gap, based on the most current literature, we developed creative and intuitive neonatal LUS algorithms. We hope they can serve as a clinical imaging guidelines and a valuable complement to the history and physical exam.