The new application of point-of-care lung ultrasound in guiding or assisting neonatal severe lung disease treatment based on a case series.

Objective

Lung ultrasound (LUS) has been successfully used for neonatal lung disease diagnosis, as a non-invasive, free of radiation tool, the application of point-of-care LUS (POC-LUS) to diagnose lung disease has become a new trend worldwide. This paper was to introduce the new application of LUS to guide or assist the neonatal lung diseases treatment.

Methods

Based on case series of our daily routine clinical work, in combining with the latest literatures, we introducing the new using field of POC-LUS in guiding the treatment of uninflated lung disease by bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL), guiding the treatment of severe pleural effusion and pneumothorax, guide the use of and weaning from mechanical ventilation, and in assessing the efficacy of exogenous pulmonary surfactant (PS) therapy.

Results

The results of this study showed that the using rate of invasive ventilation and PS were decreased significantly, the duration of invasive ventilation was shortened significantly, the recovery of pleural effusion and pneumothorax were more quickly and safety, and finally a significantly shortened length of hospitalizations was obtained.

Conclusions

LUS monitoring had significant effects in guiding the management of neonatal severe lung diseases, which with the worthy of extensive clinical application.