Evidence map›Paper›PMID 40742513›Full record

ReviewThe ultrasound journal2025

Chest ultrasound vs. Radiograph for pneumothorax diagnosis performed by emergency healthcare workers in the emergency department: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Jean-Baptiste Bouillon-Minois, Coline Burlet, Resa E Lewiss, Reza Bagheri, Christophe Perrier, Jeannot Schmidt, Frédéric Dutheil

Abstract readReview
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Review in The ultrasound journal, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
4citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from 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.

2 · The registry

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.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

4 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Pneumothorax and Hemothorax: Practical Approaches for Radiologists.Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology · 2026
    Review
  3. Article
  4. Observational
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

7 authors.

Jean-Baptiste Bouillon-Minois *CHU Clermont-Ferrand, Emergency Department, CNRS, LaPSCo, Physiological and Psychosocial Stress, Université Clermont Auvergne, 58, Rue Montalembert, 63000, Clermont-Ferrand, France. jbbouillon-minois@chu-clermontferrand.fr.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6556-4187
Coline Burlet *Emergency Department, CHU Clermont-Ferrand, 63000, Clermont-Ferrand, France.
Resa E LewissDepartment of Emergency Medicine, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA.
Reza BagheriDepartment of Exercise Physiology, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, 81746-73441, Iran.
Christophe PerrierEmergency Department, CHU Clermont-Ferrand, 63000, Clermont-Ferrand, France.
Jeannot SchmidtCHU Clermont-Ferrand, Emergency Department, CNRS, LaPSCo, Physiological and Psychosocial Stress, Université Clermont Auvergne, 58, Rue Montalembert, 63000, Clermont-Ferrand, France.
Frédéric DutheilCNRS, LaPSCo, Physiological and Psychosocial Stress, CHU Clermont-Ferrand, Occupational and Environmental Medicine, WittyFit, Université Clermont Auvergne, 63000, Clermont-Ferrand, France.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundThe efficacy of bedside chest ultrasonography for the detection and diagnosis of pneumothorax is under debate. We aimed to compare Emergency Healthcare Workers performed chest ultrasonography with chest X-ray in the detection and diagnosis of pneumothorax in the emergency department.

methodsWe queried PubMed, Cochrane, ScienceDirect, Web of Science and ClinicalTrials.gov databases from 2000 through January 2024. We included all studies (both retrospective and prospective) that compared the diagnostic performance of chest ultrasonography with chest radiography, using chest computed tomography as the gold standard. Participants are patients consulting in the emergency department and physician that performed the chest ultrasound was an Emergency Healthcare Workers. Studies reporting the sensitivity and specificity for both chest ultrasonography and chest X-ray met inclusion criteria. We applied a random effects meta-analysis methodology. We then performed a meta-regression analysis to search for influencing variables such as technical parameters of echograph, patients and pneumothorax. MAIN

results15 studies totaling 3,171 patients were analyzed. 71% of patients were male with a mean age of 40.2 years. The mean prevalence of pneumothorax was 27.6% (95 CI 20.9 to 34.3). Chest ultrasonography had higher sensitivity (79.4%, 68.2 to 90.7) compared to chest X-ray (48.1%, 36.8 to 59.4), and a greater negative predictive value (chest ultrasonography = 94.3%, 91.2 to 97.3, and chest X-ray = 87.9%, 84.1 to 91.6). There was no statistical difference in specificity between the two modalities: chest ultrasonography 99.5%, 99 to 100 and chest X-ray 99.8%, 99.4 to 100) or in positive predictive value (chest ultrasonography 94.2%, 90.5 to 97.9 vs chest X-ray 96.7%,92 to 100). Characteristics of echograph or pneumothorax and patients sociodemographic did not influence results.

conclusionIn this systematic review and meta-analysis, chest ultrasonography performed by Emergency Healthcare Workers, had greater sensitivity and negative predictive value than chest radiography for the diagnosis of pneumothorax in emergency department patients.

Indexed as

Bedside ultrasoundChest ultrasoundChest x-rayEmergency departmentPneumothorax

Identifiers

PMID40742513
PMCPMC12314293

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY
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Registered trials

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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.