Lung Ultrasound in the Follow-up of Stable Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis

Year 2022, Volume: 39 Issue: 4, 1190 - 1193, 29.10.2022

Oya Baydar Toprak , Ezgi Özyılmaz , İsmail Hanta , Sedat Kuleci , Efraim Güzel

Abstract

Aim: Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis is the most common and severe form of idiopathic interstitial pneumonia and is responsible for 20% of interstitial lung disease (ILD) cases. In this study, it was planned to evaluate the relationship of these two methods in detecting lung changes in IPF using a 12-zone lung ultrasound protocol with the current standard evaluation method, high-resolution computed tomography.
Method: 22 patients diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis by multidisciplinary evaluation were included in the study and HRCT and pulmonary functional tests and LUS protocol of 12 lung regions were used.
Results: The mean age ± SD of the patients was 69.0 ± 7.59 years. 21 (95.5%) were male. While 17 (77.3%) of the patients included in the study were diagnosed with radiological evidence, the diagnosis of the rest was confirmed histopathologically. While 5 of the patients (22.7%) did not receive any special treatment, 13 of the remaining patients were taking pirfenidone and 4 were taking nintedanib. When the HRCT total fibrotic score was evaluated with the total LUS score, a correlation coefficient of 0.702 (P:0.000) was obtained.
Conclusion: In stable idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, lung ultrasonography can be a readily accessible, non-irradiating, short-term, and rapidly informative monitoring technique that can be utilized at the bedside or during consultation instead of high reolution thorax computerized tomography.

Keywords

idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, lung ultrasound, thorax tomography, pulmonary funcyion tests, gap

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