Summary

• PoCUS is both sensitive and specific for the diagnosis of pneumothorax.
• Use the linear probe to scan the anterior chest in a supine patient.
• Absence of shimmering, comet tails and lung pulse indicate pneumothorax.
• Don’t forget to document your findings in the chart and save images fro QA.

References

1. Alrajhi K, Woo MY, Vaillancourt C. Test characteristics of ultrasonography for the detection of pneumothorax: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Chest 2012;141:703-8. doi:10.1378/chest.11-0131.

2. Seow et al. Comparison of Upright Inspiratory and Expieratory Chest Radiographs for Detecting Pneumothoraces. AJR 1996; 166:313-316. doi: 10.2214/ajr.166.2.8553937.

3. Murphy et al. CT and Chest Radiography are Equally Sensitive in the Detection of Pneumothorax After CTGuided Pulmonary Interventional Procedures. AJR 1990;154:45-46. doi: 10.2214/ajr.154.1.2104723.

4. Raimondi et al. Lung Ultrasound for Diagnosing Pneumothorax in the Critically Ill Neonate. J Pediatr 2016;175:74-8. doi:10.1016/j.jpeds.201.04.018

5. Cattarossi et al. Lung Ultrasound Diagnostic Accuracy in Neonatal Pneumothorax. Canad Resp J. 2016. doi 10.1155/2016/6515069

6. Liu et al. Lung ultrasonography to diagnose pneumothorax of the newborn. AJEM 2017;35:1298-1302. doi: 10.1016/j.ajem.2017.04.001.

7. Volpicelli et al. Semi-quantification of pneumothorax volume by lung ultrasound. Int Care Med 2016;40:14607. doi:10.1007/s00134-014-3402-9.