Role of lung ultrasound in identifying COVID 19 pneumonia in patients with negative swab during the outbreak
Lung ultrasound is a reasonable tool for detection of manifestations of COVID 19, to facilitate the division of patients flow of infected with SARS CoV 2 from those affected by other pathologies Often, a reason for the incorrect separation of the flows is the possibility of false negative rRT PCR results We aimed to evaluate the advantages of performing Lung Ultrasound (LUS) in patients with a negative swab, to confirm the suspicious of COVID 19 at the bedside, according to the recent findings of typical lung ultrasound lesions of COVID19 related pneumonia We analyzed 11 non critical patients admitted to Emergency Department in the Internal Medicine ward, during outbreak, as Covid 19 negative patients affected by pneumonia The result of the ultrasound findings conditioned the consequent allocation of the patient 9/11 patients had typical LUS findings for COVID 19, but only 3/11 patients had a second positive nasopharyngeal swab, and 2/11 had positive swab on pleural fluid 6/11 patients remained negative with strongly suspicious LUS lesions, and so treated and isolated as Covid 19 positive 2/11 had negative swab and none LUS findings, thus treated as affected by other pathologies These findings clearly show how LUS plays an important role together with the chest x ray in identifying patients with interstitial pneumonia from COVID 19