SynthesisScientific reports2020
The diagnostic accuracy of lung auscultation in adult patients with acute pulmonary pathologies: a meta-analysis.
Synthesis in Scientific reports, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to 2 registered trials, which are not on this map. Cited by 43 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
The Efficacy of Medical Students to Correctly Recognise Pathological From Non-pathological Lung Sounds Over a Period of Time
The Effect of White Noise on the Ability of Second-year and Third-year Medical Students to Recognise Correctly Adventitious Lung Sound
Who cites it
43 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 104 citations in OpenAlex.
- Accuracy of Deep Learning in Diagnosing Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Pooled it
- Audio-based digital biomarkers in diagnosing and managing respiratory diseases: a systematic review and bibliometric analysis.European respiratory review : an official journal of the European Respiratory Society · 2025Pooled it
- Cardiopulmonary Point-of-Care Ultrasonography for Hospitalist Management of Undifferentiated Dyspnea.JAMA network open · 2025Trial
- Stretchable and Self-Healable Acoustic Sensor for Fast Respiratory Diseases Identification Based on Biocompatible Piezoelectric Polyester Elastomer.Small (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) · 2026Article
- Exploratory Assessment of Pulsed-Wave Doppler Representations of Lung Sounds Using Deep Learning: An In-Vitro Phantom Study.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Lung Auscultation for Detecting Interstitial Lung Disease in Patients with Newly Diagnosed Systemic Sclerosis: Retrospective Cohort Study.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Can clinicians quantify pulmonary congestion accurately using conventional modalities without remote dielectric sensing: ReDS quiz study.Heart and vessels · 2026Article
- Tele-guided Ultrasound Lung Imaging for Paramedics (TULIP)-An Acceptability Study.Journal of imaging informatics in medicine · 2026Article
- Prehospital diagnostic performance of emergency physicians in identifying blunt traumatic pneumothorax requiring early decompression.BMC emergency medicine · 2026Observational
- Artificial Intelligence Enabled Lung Sound Auscultation in the Early Diagnosis and Subtyping of Interstitial Lung Disease.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Review
- Fabrication of Stretchable Piezoelectric Sensor with a Kirigami Design for Heart Sound Monitoring.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Diagnosing acute lower respiratory tract infections in out-of-hours services during the COVID-19 pandemic.International journal of emergency medicine · 2025Article
- Comparison of the Utility of Single-Ear and Binaural Auscultations: A Diagnostic Accuracy Study.Cureus · 2025Article
- Point-of-care ultrasonography in nephrology: Growing applications, misconceptions and future outlook.World journal of nephrology · 2025Review
- Evaluating the utility of chest x-rays for non-traumatic chest pain in Australia- a retrospective cohort study.Emergency radiology · 2025Article
- A MEMS seismometer respiratory monitor for work of breathing assessment and adventitious lung sounds detection via deep learning.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Article
- Lung ultrasound in pneumonia: a guide for effective implementation.Internal and emergency medicine · 2025Review
- Early hypoxia prediction in diseased patients via wheezing sounds in respiration: a prospective cohort study.Frontiers in medicine · 2025Article
- The unreliability of crackles: insights from a breath sound study using physicians and artificial intelligence.NPJ primary care respiratory medicine · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The stethoscope is used as first line diagnostic tool in assessment of patients with pulmonary symptoms. However, there is much debate about the diagnostic accuracy of this instrument. This meta-analysis aims to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of lung auscultation for the most common respiratory pathologies. Studies concerning adult patients with respiratory symptoms are included. Main outcomes are pooled estimates of sensitivity and specificity with 95% confidence intervals, likelihood ratios (LRs), area under the curve (AUC) of lung auscultation for different pulmonary pathologies and breath sounds. A meta-regression analysis is performed to reduce observed heterogeneity. For 34 studies the overall pooled sensitivity for lung auscultation is 37% and specificity 89%. LRs and AUC of auscultation for congestive heart failure, pneumonia and obstructive lung diseases are low, LR- and specificity are acceptable. Abnormal breath sounds are highly specific for (hemato)pneumothorax in patients with trauma. Results are limited by significant heterogeneity. Lung auscultation has a low sensitivity in different clinical settings and patient populations, thereby hampering its clinical utility. When better diagnostic modalities are available, they should replace lung auscultation. Only in resource limited settings, with a high prevalence of disease and in experienced hands, lung auscultation has still a role.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.