It is evident that conventional chest radiography remains the first routine radiologic examination in mechanically ventilated patients. However, the chest ultrasound provides more accurate information, with less ionizing radiation and less time delay. A recent study compared the sensitivity of chest ultrasound and routine daily chest X-ray in the diagnosis and follow up of diseases in 25 mechanically ventilated patients reported that initial chest ultrasound was more sensitive in the detection of pleural effusion (40% of cases) than chest X-ray (8% of cases).
Chest ultrasound examination was done for patients on mechanical ventilation on the first day of enrollment prior to seeing their chest X-ray, then follow up daily chest ultrasound examination was done over the entire period of mechanical ventilation with a comparison of examination results with that of chest X-ray. Moreover, there…
