ArticleBMJ open2022
Volume sweep imaging lung teleultrasound for detection of COVID-19 in Peru: a multicentre pilot study.
Article in BMJ open, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 12 citations in OpenAlex.
- An AI-enabled comprehensive breast ultrasound diagnostic system for low-resource settings without a sonographer or a radiologist.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- New lung ultrasound system for rapid triage of pulmonary disease without a radiologist or sonographer.BMC pulmonary medicine · 2025Article
- WATUNet: a deep neural network for segmentation of volumetric sweep imaging ultrasound.Machine learning: science and technology · 2024Article
- Advancing healthcare through thoracic ultrasound research in older patients.Aging clinical and experimental research · 2023Review
- Can Artificial Intelligence Aid Diagnosis by Teleguided Point-of-Care Ultrasound? A Pilot Study for Evaluating a Novel Computer Algorithm for COVID-19 Diagnosis Using Lung Ultrasound.AI (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Integrating Telehealth for Strengthening Health Systems in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Perspective from Peru.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Review
- Enhancing breast ultrasound segmentation through fine-tuning and optimization techniques: Sharp attention UNet.PloS one · 2023Article
- Sustainable volume sweep imaging lung teleultrasound in Peru: Public health perspectives from a new frontier in expanding access to imaging.Frontiers in health services · 2023Article
- No sonographer, no radiologist: Assessing accuracy of artificial intelligence on breast ultrasound volume sweep imaging scans.PLOS digital health · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
11 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesPulmonary disease is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in adults and children, but most of the world lacks diagnostic imaging for its assessment. Lung ultrasound is a portable, low-cost, and highly accurate imaging modality for assessment of pulmonary pathology including pneumonia, but its deployment is limited secondary to a lack of trained sonographers. In this study, we piloted a low-cost lung teleultrasound system in rural Peru during the COVID-19 pandemic using lung ultrasound volume sweep imaging (VSI) that can be operated by an individual without prior ultrasound training circumventing many obstacles to ultrasound deployment.
designPilot study.
settingStudy activities took place in five health centres in rural Peru.
participantsThere were 213 participants presenting to rural health clinics.
interventionsIndividuals without prior ultrasound experience in rural Peru underwent brief training on how to use the teleultrasound system and perform lung ultrasound VSI. Subsequently, patients attending clinic were scanned by these previously ultrasound-naïve operators with the teleultrasound system. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: Radiologists examined the ultrasound imaging to assess its diagnostic value and identify any pathology. A random subset of 20% of the scans were analysed for inter-reader reliability.
resultsLung VSI teleultrasound examinations underwent detailed analysis by two cardiothoracic attending radiologists. Of the examinations, 202 were rated of diagnostic image quality (94.8%, 95% CI 90.9% to 97.4%). There was 91% agreement between radiologists on lung ultrasound interpretation among a 20% sample of all examinations (κ=0.76, 95% CI 0.53 to 0.98). Radiologists were able to identify sequelae of COVID-19 with the predominant finding being B-lines.
conclusionLung VSI teleultrasound performed by individuals without prior training allowed diagnostic imaging of the lungs and identification of sequelae of COVID-19 infection. Deployment of lung VSI teleultrasound holds potential as a low-cost means to improve access to imaging around the world.
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