Importance of lung ultrasound follow‐up in patients who had recovered from coronavirus disease 2019: Results from a prospective study

Abstract

There is growing evidence regarding the imaging findings of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) in lung ultrasounds, however, their role in predicting the prognosis has yet to be ex-plored. Our objective was to assess the usefulness of lung ultrasound in the short‐term follow‐up (1 and 3 months) of patients with SARS‐CoV‐2 pneumonia, and to describe the progression of the most relevant lung ultrasound findings. We conducted a prospective, longitudinal and observational study performed in patients with confirmed COVID‐19 who underwent a lung ultrasound exami-nation during hospitalization and repeated it 1 and 3 months after hospital discharge. A total of 96 patients were enrolled. In the initial ultrasound, bilateral involvement was present in 100% of the patients with mild, moderate or severe ARDS. The most affected lung area was the posteroinferior (93.8%) followed by the lateral (88.7%). Subpleural consolidations were present in 68% of the patients and consolidations larger than 1 cm in 24%. One month after the initial study, only 20.8% had complete resolution on lung ultrasound. This percentage rose to 68.7% at 3 months. Residual lesions were observed in a significant percentage of patients who recovered from moderate or severe ARDS (32.4% and 61.5%, respectively). In conclusion, lung injury associated with COVID‐19 might take time to resolve. The findings in this report support the use of lung ultrasound in the short‐term follow‐up of patients recovered from COVID‐19, as a radiation‐sparing, easy to use, novel care path worth exploring.