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

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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