Roles of transthoracic lung ultrasonography in diagnosis of interstitial lung disease: correlation with HRCT, vital capacity, diffusing of the lung for monoxide test

Early diagnosis of interstitial lung disease is a challenge for clinicians and HRCT is considered the gold standard technique. Some studies demonstrated that transthoracic lung ultrasound (US) can play a complementary role for diagnosis and monitoring the course of interstitial lung diseases. The aims of our study is to find the correlation between the US lung semiquantitative score, chest HRCT score, values of force vital capacity, diffusing capacity of the lung for monoxide test and symptoms in patients with differential interstitial lung disease. We have investigated 10 intercostal space with ultrasound for B lines and correlated a total score with HRCT score, forced vital capacity and diffusing capacity value, gasometric parameters, Borg scale Dyspnea score and six Minutes Walk Test results. We used Sygma Plot V12 for statistical analyse. We have found mean value with standard deviation for all investigated parameters. We have applied the Pearson Correlation Score and evalueted the coefficients correlation. We had 14 patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, 6 with NSIP, 11 with collagen tissue disseases, 7 with pulmonary sarcoidosis. The mean value for HRCT score was 50.52 and for ultrasound score was 20.02. The pair of variables had positive correlation coefficients (the variables increase together with P value below 0.05). The transthoracic lung ultrasound can be considered as a valid non invasive method for the assessment of interstitial pulmonary fibrosis and can be used as a complementary method for screening of early diagnosis in symptomatic patients before High Resolution Computed Tomography.