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Current Ultrasound Technologies and Instrumentation in the Assessment and Monitoring of COVID-19 Positive Patients
- Source :
- IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control, IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control
- Publication Year :
- 2020
- Publisher :
- Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), 2020.
-
Abstract
- Since the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic in December of 2019, clinicians and scientists all over the world have faced overwhelming new challenges that not only threaten their own communities and countries but also the world at large. These challenges have been enormous and debilitating, as the infrastructure of many countries, including developing ones, had little or no resources to deal with the crisis. Even in developed countries, such as Italy, health systems have been so inundated by cases that health care facilities became oversaturated and could not accommodate the unexpected influx of patients to be tested. Initially, resources were focused on testing to identify those who were infected. When it became clear that the virus mainly attacks the lungs by causing parenchymal changes in the form of multifocal pneumonia of different levels of severity, imaging became paramount in the assessment of disease severity, progression, and even response to treatment. As a result, there was a need to establish protocols for imaging of the lungs in these patients. In North America, the focus was on chest X-ray and computed tomography (CT) as these are widely available and accessible at most health facilities. However, in Europe and China, this was not the case, and a cost-effective and relatively fast imaging modality was needed to scan a large number of sick patients promptly. Hence, ultrasound (US) found its way into the hands of Chinese and European physicians and has since become an important imaging modality in those locations. US is a highly versatile, portable, and inexpensive imaging modality that has application across a broad spectrum of conditions and, in this way, is ideally suited to assess the lungs of COVID-19 patients in the intensive care unit (ICU). This bedside test can be done with little to no movement of the patients from the unit that keeps them in their isolated rooms, thereby limiting further exposure to other health personnel. This article presents a basic introduction to COVID-19 and the use of the US for lung imaging. It further provides a high-level overview of the existing US technologies that are driving development in current and potential future US imaging systems for lung, with a specific emphasis on portable and 3-D systems.
- Subjects :
- Acoustics and Ultrasonics
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)
Pneumonia, Viral
MEDLINE
Comorbidity
01 natural sciences
Article
law.invention
Betacoronavirus
Imaging, Three-Dimensional
law
0103 physical sciences
Pandemic
Health care
medicine
Humans
Instrumentation (computer programming)
Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Lung
Pandemics
010301 acoustics
Instrumentation
Ultrasonography
Modality (human–computer interaction)
SARS-CoV-2
business.industry
COVID-19
medicine.disease
Intensive care unit
Medical emergency
Coronavirus Infections
business
Developed country
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 15258955 and 08853010
- Volume :
- 67
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....d1afd1f07168b42621aafb50b0933dd9