Background Point-of-care lung ultrasound (LU) is an established tool in the first assessment of patients with coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Purpose of this study was to evaluate the value of lung ultrasound in COVID-19 intensive care unit (ICU) patients in predicting clinical course and outcome. Methods We analyzed lung ultrasound score (LUS) of all COVID-19 patients admitted from March 2020 to December 2020 to the Internal Intensive Care Unit, Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU) of Munich. LU was performed according to a standardized protocol at ICU admission and in case of clinical deterioration with the need for intubation. A normal lung scores 0 points, the worst LUS has 24 points. Patients were stratified in a low (0–12 points) and a high (13–24 points) lung ultrasound score group. Results The study included 42 patients, 69% of them male. The most common comorbidities were hypertension (81%) and obesity (57%). The values of pH (7.42 ± 0.09 vs 7.35 ± 0.1; p = 0.047) and p a O 2 (107 [80–130] vs 80 [66–93] mmHg; p = 0.034) were significantly reduced in patients of the high LUS group. Furthermore, the duration of ventilation (12.5 [8.3–25] vs 36.5 [9.8–70] days; p = 0.029) was significantly prolonged in this group. Patchy subpleural thickening ( n = 38; 90.5%) and subpleural consolidations ( n = 23; 54.8%) were present in most patients. Pleural effusion was rare ( n = 4; 9.5%). The median total LUS was 11.9 ± 3.9 points. In case of clinical deterioration with the need for intubation, LUS worsened significantly compared to baseline LU. Twelve patients died during the ICU stay (29%). There was no difference in survival in both LUS groups (75% vs 66.7%, p = 0.559). Conclusions LU can be a useful monitoring tool to predict clinical course but not outcome of COVID-19 ICU patients and can early recognize possible deteriorations. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12871-021-01396-5.
【저자키워드】 COVID-19, outcome, Lung ultrasound, Lung ultrasound score, Clinical course, Deterioration, 【초록키워드】 coronavirus disease, coronavirus, intensive care, obesity, Ventilation, intensive care unit, lung, Comorbidity, intubation, hypertension, ICU, Clinical course, survival, male, Patient, ICU admission, ICU Patients, group, consolidation, patients, predict, COVID-19 patient, Clinical deterioration, Munich, pleural effusion, supplementary material, Most patients, no difference, mmHg, standardized protocol, ICU patient, internal, Result, analyzed, evaluate, significantly, was performed, reduced, median, recognize, stratified, baseline, patients died, subpleural, worsened, 【제목키워드】 ICU, predict, retrospective, Analysis, single-center,