April 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the lives for all of us and we are deeply committed to making our contribution to get through this crisis together.

There have been several publications reporting recent cases which value the usage of lung ultrasound for the care of patients with COVID-19.

As the global infection rates of COVID-19 continue to rise, investigators in Italy, led by Erika Poggiali, M.D., from Ospedale Guglielmo da Saliceto, evaluated whether lung ultrasound could be an effective tool in also identifying patients who have pneumonia specifically associated with the virus. They published their results in a Letter to the Editor recently in Radiology.

 “We are aware that our data are preliminary and further studies are necessary to confirm the role of lung ultrasound in the diagnosis and management of COVID-19, but we strongly recommend the use of bedside ultrasound for the early diagnosis of COVID-19 pneumonia in all the patients who presented to the emergency department with flu-like symptoms in novel COVID-19 era,” Poggiali wrote.

Read more in the open source publication: Erika Poggiali at al. Can Lung US Help Critical Care Clinicians in the Early Diagnosis of Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pneumonia? Radiology, March 2020: 
https://pubs.rsna.org/doi/10.1148/radiol.2020200847

In The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, a group of Italian physicians from Fondazione Policlinico Universitario Agostino Gemelli IRCCS stressed the position that the usage of lung ultrasound minimizes the interactions between health care staff and patients to only necessary procedures and ensures health-care worker safety in the airway management of COVID-19 patients.

Read more in the open source publication: Danilo Buonsenso at al. COVID-19 outbreak: less stethoscope, more ultrasound, The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, March 2020:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(20)30120-X/fulltext

In Intensive Care Medicine, the Chinese Critical Care Ultrasound Study Group shared their experience that lung ultrasonography was a major utility for the management of COVID-19 patients with respiratory involvement due to its safety, repeatability, absence of radiation, low cost and point of care use.

Read more in the open source publication: Peng, Q., Wang, X. & Zhang, L. Findings of lung ultrasonography of novel corona virus pneumonia during the 2019–2020 epidemic, Intensive Care Medicine, March 2020:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00134-020-05996-6#auth-1

We from innoMedicus are very proud that our SonoIQ and Terason 3200 mobile ultrasound systems can make a modest contribution to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. We are with you every step of the way.