• Ann Thorac Med · Apr 2014

    B-lines: Transthoracic chest ultrasound signs useful in assessment of interstitial lung diseases.

    • Ali A Hasan and Hoda A Makhlouf.
    • Department of Chest, Assiut University Hospital, Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt.
    • Ann Thorac Med. 2014 Apr 1; 9 (2): 99-103.

    ObjectiveThis prospective study was conducted to evaluate the value of sonographic B-lines (previously called "comet tail artifacts"), which are long, vertical, well-defined, hyperechoic, dynamic lines originating from the pleural line in assessment of interstitial lung diseases (ILD) and compare them with the findings of chest high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) and pulmonary function tests (PFTs).Materials And MethodsSixty-one patients with ILD underwent transthoracic lung ultrasound for assessment of the presence of B-lines and the distance between them. These findings were compared with that of chest HRCT (ground glass, reticular, nodular or honey combing) and PFT as forced vital capacity (FVC), total lung capacity (TLC), diffusion capacity for carbon monoxide (DLCO) and partial arterial oxygen pressure (PaO2).ResultsAll patients had diffuse bilateral B-lines. The distance between each of the two adjacent B lines correlated with the severity of the disease on chest HRCT where B3 (the distance was 3 mm) correlated with ground glass opacity and B7 (the distance was 7 mm) correlated with extensive fibrosis and honey combing. Also, the distance between B-lines inversely correlated with FVC (r = -0.848, P < 0.001), TLC (r = -0.664, P < 0.001), DLCO (r = -0.817, P < 0.001) and PaO2 (r = -0.902, P < 0.001).ConclusionB-lines that are lung Ultrasound signs seem to be useful in the assessment of ILD.

      Pubmed     Free full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…