Lung Ultrasound Findings in Healthy Children and in Those Who Had Recent, Not Severe COVID-19 Infection

Abstract

Background: Lung ultrasound (LUS) is gaining consensus as a non-invasive diagnostic imaging method for the evaluation of pulmonary disease in children. Aim: To clarify what type of artifacts (e.g., B-lines, pleural irregularity) can be defined normal LUS findings in children and to evaluate the differences in children who did not experience COVID-19 and in those with recent, not severe, previous COVID-19. Methods: LUS was performed according to standardized protocols. Different patterns of normality were defined: pattern 1: no plural irregularity and no B-lines; pattern 2: only mild basal posterior plural irregularity and no B-lines; pattern 3: mild posterior basal/para-spine/apical pleural irregularity and no B-lines; pattern 4: like pattern 3 plus rare B-lines; pattern 5: mild, diffuse short subpleural vertical artifacts and rare B-lines; pattern 6: mild, diffuse short subpleural vertical artifacts and limited B-lines; pattern 7: like pattern 6 plus minimal subpleural atelectasis. Coalescent B-lines, consolidations, or effusion were considered pathological. Results: Overall, 459 healthy children were prospectively recruited (mean age 10.564 ± 3.839 years). Children were divided into two groups: group 1 (n = 336), those who had not had COVID-19 infection, and group 2 (n = 123), those who experienced COVID-19 infection. Children with previous COVID-19 had higher values of LUS score than those who had not (p = 0.0002). Children with asymptomatic COVID-19 had similar LUS score as those who did not have infections (p > 0.05), while those who had symptoms showed higher LUS score than those who had not shown symptoms (p = 0.0228). Conclusions: We report the pattern of normality for LUS examination in children. We also showed that otherwise healthy children who recovered from COVID-19 and even those who were mildly symptomatic had more “physiological” artifacts at LUS examinations.