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. 2021 Nov 24;11(1):22892.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-02275-2.

Usefulness of lung ultrasound for selecting asymptomatic older patients with COVID 19 pneumonia

Chukwuma Okoye  1   2 , Valeria Calsolaro  1 , Alessandra Fabbri  1 , Riccardo Franchi  1 , Rachele Antognoli  1 , Ludovica Zisca  2 , Camilla Bianchi  2 , Alessia Maria Calabrese  1 , Sara Rogani  1 , Fabio Monzani  3
Affiliations

Usefulness of lung ultrasound for selecting asymptomatic older patients with COVID 19 pneumonia

Chukwuma Okoye et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Clinical and prognostic differences between symptomatic and asymptomatic older patients with COVID-19 are of great interest since frail patients often show atypical presentation of illness. Lung Ultrasound (LUS) has been proven to be a reliable tool for detecting early-phase COVID-19 pneumonic alterations. The current prospective bicentric study aimed to compare LUS score and 3-month overall mortality between asymptomatic and symptomatic older patients with COVID-19, according to frailty status. Patients were stratified according to LUS score tertiles and Clinical Frailty Scale categories. Survival rate was assessed by telephone interviews 3 months after discharge. 64 symptomatic (24 women, aged 80.0 ± 10.8 years) and 46 asymptomatic (31 women, aged 84.3 ± 8.8 years) were consecutively enrolled. LUS score resulted an independent predictor of 3-month mortality [OR 2.27 (CI95% 1.09-4.8), p = 0.03], and the highest mortality rate was observed in symptomatic and asymptomatic pre-frail and frail patients (70.6% and 66.7%, respectively) with greater LUS abnormalities (3rd tertile). In conclusion, LUS identified an acute interstitial lung involvement in most of the older asymptomatic patients. Mortality rate progressively increased according to clinical frailty and LUS score degree, resulting a reliable prognostic tool in both symptomatic and asymptomatic patients.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flow chart of the observational cohort study.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Lung ultrasound features of symptomatic and asymptomatic older patients with SARS-CoV2-infection. **p-value < 0.01, ***p-value < 0.001. ns not significant.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Distribution of lung ultrasound score in symptomatic and asymptomatic older patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection. ***p-value < 0.0001.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Three-months all-cause-mortality of older patients with SARS-CoV2 infection according to LUS score tertiles. **p-value < 0.01.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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