Contrast-Enhanced Ultrasound of the Pleural Cavity: A Method to Locate Pleural Catheters and Identify Fibrous Septa
We aimed to explore the value of contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) of the pleural cavity in locating catheters and identifying fibrous septa and to compare CEUS with multiple existing methods. We included 304 participants whose pleural effusion could not continue to be drained and compared the catheter-localization capabilities of empirical diagnosis, B-mode ultrasound with normal saline and CEUS, with computed tomography as the reference standard. CEUS performed the best (accuracy, 100%; sensitivity, 100%; specificity, 100%), followed by B-mode ultrasound with normal saline (accuracy, 77.78%; sensitivity, 62.5%; specificity, 100%), and finally empirical diagnosis (accuracy, 54.17%; sensitivity, 66.67%; specificity, 33.33%).
Source: Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology - Category: Radiology Authors: Ke Bi, Bin Wang, Yi Zhang, Meng-jun Shen, Hong-wei Chen, Hui-ming Zhu, Chun-hong Tang, Yin Wang Tags: Original Contribution Source Type: research