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Portable chest radiography (CXR) is frequently suboptimal, and critically ill patients might be too unstable to transport for chest computed tomography (CT). Investigators in Greece prospectively compared findings of bedside ultrasound (US), CXR, and chest CT in 42 mechanically ventilated patients in a surgical–medical intensive care unit (ICU) whose treating physicians ordered contrast chest CT. A blinded expert radiologist interpreted each of 12 lung regions as positive or negative for each of four common pathologies.
US performed better than CXR for all four pathologies. Compared with chest CT as the gold standard, the sensitivity, specificity, and diagnostic accuracy of lung US and CXR were as follows: consolidation (100%, 78%, 95% vs. 3…