ArticleEuropean heart journal. Acute cardiovascular care2021
A-lines and B-lines in patients with acute heart failure.
Article in European heart journal. Acute cardiovascular care, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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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.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 13 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pooled it
- Lung Ultrasound in Children: Principles, Techniques, and Clinical Applications.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Point-of-care ultrasonography in High-Care Internal Medicine.Journal of ultrasound · 2026Review
- Early lung ultrasound for clinical risk stratification in acute coronary syndrome: a prospective cohort study.Heart and vessels · 2026Article
- Assessment of Decongestion Status Before Discharge in Acute Decompensated Heart Failure: A Review of Clinical, Biochemical, and Imaging Tools and Their Impact on Management Decisions.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2025Review
- Automatic B-lines: a tool for minimizing time to diuretic administration in pulmonary edema patients in the emergency department of a developing country.International journal of emergency medicine · 2024Article
- Nuts and bolts of lung ultrasound: utility, scanning techniques, protocols, and findings in common pathologies.Critical care (London, England) · 2024Review
- Comparison of the prognostic value, feasibility, and reproducibility among different scoring methods of 8‑point lung ultrasonography in patients with acute heart failure.Internal and emergency medicine · 2023Observational
- Clinical value of pulmonary congestion detection by lung ultrasound in patients with chronic heart failure.Clinical cardiology · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
aimsLung ultrasound (LUS) relies on detecting artefacts, including A-lines and B-lines, when assessing dyspnoeic patients. A-lines are horizontal artefacts and characterize normal lung, whereas multiple vertical B-lines are associated with increased lung density. We sought to assess the prevalence of A-lines and B-lines in patients with acute heart failure (AHF) and examine their clinical correlates and their relationship with outcomes. METHODS AND
resultsIn a prospective cohort study of adults with AHF, eight-zone LUS and echocardiography were performed early during the hospitalization and pre-discharge at an imaging depth of 18 cm. A- and B-lines were analysed separately off-line, blinded to clinical and outcome data. Of 164 patients [median age 71 years, 61% men, mean ejection fraction (EF) 40%], the sum of A-lines at baseline ranged from 0 to 19 and B-line number from 0 to 36. One hundred and fifty-six patients (95%) had co-existing A-lines and B-lines at baseline. Lower body mass index and lower chest wall thickness were associated with a higher number of A-lines (P trend < 0.001 for both). In contrast to B-lines, there was no significant change in the number of A-lines from baseline to discharge (median 6 vs. 5, P = 0.80). While B-lines were associated with 90-day HF readmission or death, A-lines were not [HR 1.67, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.11-2.51 vs. HR 0.97, 95% CI 0.65-1.43].
conclusionsA-lines and B-lines on LUS co-exist in the vast majority of hospitalized patients with AHF. In contrast to B-lines, A-lines were not associated with adverse outcomes.
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Registered trials
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