Acoustic Lung Imaging Utilized in Continual Assessment of Patients with Obstructed Airway: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Smart respiratory therapy is enabled by continual assessment of lung functions. This systematic review provides an overview of the suitability of equipment-to-patient acoustic imaging in continual assessment of lung conditions. The literature search was conducted using Scopus, PubMed, ScienceDirect, Web of Science, SciELO Preprints, and Google Scholar. Fifteen studies remained for additional examination after the screening process. Two imaging modalities, lung ultrasound (LUS) and vibration imaging response (VRI), were identified. The most common outcome obtained from eleven studies was positive observations of changes to the geographical lung area, sound energy, or both, while positive observation of lung consolidation was reported in the remaining four studies. Two different modalities of lung assessment were used in eight studies, with one study comparing VRI against chest X-ray, one study comparing VRI with LUS, two studies comparing LUS to chest X-ray, and four studies comparing LUS in contrast to computed tomography. Our findings indicate that the acoustic imaging approach could assess and provide regional information on lung function. No technology has been shown to be better than another for measuring obstructed airways; hence, more research is required on acoustic imaging in detecting obstructed airways regionally in the application of enabling smart therapy.

Keywords: acoustic lung imaging; frequent lung assessment; integrated devices; lung function application; obstructed airway identification; sensing and imaging.

Figure 1

PRISMA 2020 flow of information for study selection and inclusion.

Figure 2

The conceptual flow of acoustic imaging system working principle. (a) Lung ultrasound and (b) vibration response imaging.