While lung evaluations for patients who are suspects to have or have contracted Covid-19 are essential, identifying the more serious conditions is crucial to the better understanding of the virus. Today, PRS Healthcare decided to shed light on the benefits of ultrasounds when facing serious cases of Coronavirus.
Evaluations VS serious conditions
In a press release, the SFR has recommended not to “use ultrasounds for lung evaluations of suspected or positive Covid-19 patients.”. Yet ultrasounds can still help identifying the more serious conditions of the virus with patients who have already been diagnosed.
How ?
To conduct an ultrasound of lungs seriously affected by COVID-19, PRS Healthcare decided to share with you a tutorial video from medTandem conducted by Dr Lucie Beylacq, intensive-care anaesthetist from the Thiers de Bordeaux Clinic and co-founder of medTandem.
The evolution of Covid-19
Covid-19 evolves throughout two stages over a period of 15 days, the first stage being flu-like symptoms for a week. On the other hand, the second stage can sometimes lead patients to suffer from respiratory distress. But do not panic: a quick reminder that 80% of people who contracted the virus only experienced a benign condition if not asymptomatic.
What to do when experiencing respiratory distress ?
As Dr Beylacq highlights, clinical signs of the first stage are not quite distinguishing whereas “over the second stage; as soon as one experiences signs of respiratory distress, instructions are to receive a thoracic scanner at a hospital”. This type of scanners enables the observation of damages such as “interstitial syndrome, pulmonary condensation and pulmonary hepatisation”. According to Dr Lucie Beylacq, those damages can easily be diagnosed with the help of ultrasounds.
An access to an educational software
In this video, medTandem answers a few specific questions around pleuropulmonary ultrasounds, such as how to recognize normal lung? What type of probe should be used? What adjustments need to be made for on the ultrasound scanner? Where to place the probe? What do normal imaging look like? How to see the pleural line? How to see the pleural sliding? How to see A lines?
The aim of this educational software is to be able to tell patients “you do not show signs of a pulmonary pathology”, but it also facilitates for healthcare professionals the process of either sending patients home or hospitalizing them in dedicated units.
