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| |  Chest Ultrasound as Useful as Chest CT for Evaluating Complicated Pneumonia in Children NEW YORK -- November 20, 2009 -- Chest ultrasound can serve as a viable alternative to chest computed tomography (CT) in the evaluation of paediatric patients with complicated pneumonia and parapneumonic effusion, according to a study published in the December issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology. In the study, performed at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, New York, both chest CT and chest ultrasound were performed on 19 children with complicated pneumonia accompanied by parapneumonic effusion. “Our results showed that chest CT did not provide additional clinically useful information that was not also seen on chest ultrasound,” said lead author Terry L. Levin, MD, Department of Radiology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Medical Center. “No consensus exists on the optimal technique for imaging complicated pneumonia in children,” he said. “Although chest CT allows rapid image acquisition, the rising use of CT in the paediatric population raises the concern of an increasing ionising radiation burden.” “The benefits of chest ultrasound over chest CT include its portability, absence of need for patient sedation, and that ultrasound does not use ionising radiation,” she said. “As a result of our study, we suggest that the evaluation of children with complicated pneumonia include chest radiography and chest ultrasound. Chest CT may be reserved for patients in whom chest ultrasound is technically difficult or discrepant with the clinical findings,” said Dr. Levin.
SOURCE: American Journal of Roentgenology
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