Diagnostic Accuracy of Lung Ultrasound for Pneumonia Diagnosis in Children

Evaluation of Diagnostic Benefit and Feasibility of Using Lung Ultrasound to Diagnose Childhood Pneumonia in Low-resource Settings

Chest X-ray is historically being used as an imaging standard to aid to the diagnosis of childhood pneumonia, however, the evidence does not support it as a perfect imaging tool. As an alternative to CXR, lung ultrasound (LUS) could be used as the imaging of choice in children and studies have demonstrated its good accuracy to diagnose childhood pneumonia. However, most diagnostic studies have used CXR as a reference standard.

In absence of a 'gold standard' approach, there is a risk that large proportion of children with pneumonia and severe pneumonia could be 'missed' if clinicians relied on LUS only.

This research aims to evaluate the diagnostic benefit of LUS in children compared against 'gold standard' diagnosis which is derived based on the clinical information, imaging and laboratory investigations.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Clinical suspicion of pneumonia. Pneumonia is suspected in a child meeting the WHO case definition of pneumonia, i.e. cough or difficulty breathing associated with fast breathing and/ or lower chest wall indrawing.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Non-consenting parents.
• Children who are hospitalized for more than 24 hours.
• Children treated for pneumonia at the study site within past 4 weeks.
• Critical patients requiring emergency lifesaving support and parents unable to cooperate to provide consent.