Inter-rater variability in the evaluation of lung ultrasound in videos acquired from COVID-19 patients

Lung ultrasound (LUS) allows for the detection of a series of manifestations of COVID-19, such as B-lines and consolidations. The objective of this work was to study the inter-rater reliability (IRR) when detecting signs associated with COVID-19 in the LUS, as well as the performance of the test in...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Herraiz, Joaquin L., Freijo, Clara, Camacho, Jorge, Muñoz, Mario, González, Ricardo, Alonso-Roca, Rafael, Beltrán Romero, Luis Matías, Bernabeu Wittel, Máximo, Tung-Chen, Yale
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2023
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Sevilla (US)
Repositorio:idUS. Depósito de Investigación de la Universidad de Sevilla
OAI Identifier:oai:idus.us.es:11441/144753
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/11441/144753
https://doi.org/10.3390/app13031321
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Coronavirus disease 2019
Inter-observer agreement
Inter-rater reliability
Lung ultrasound
Point-of-care ultrasound
Reliability
Severe acute respiratory syndrome
Ultrasound
Descripción
Sumario:Lung ultrasound (LUS) allows for the detection of a series of manifestations of COVID-19, such as B-lines and consolidations. The objective of this work was to study the inter-rater reliability (IRR) when detecting signs associated with COVID-19 in the LUS, as well as the performance of the test in a longitudinal or transverse orientation. Thirty-three physicians with advanced experience in LUS independently evaluated ultrasound videos previously acquired using the ULTRACOV system on 20 patients with confirmed COVID-19. For each patient, 24 videos of 3 s were acquired (using 12 positions with the probe in longitudinal and transverse orientations). The physicians had no information about the patients or other previous evaluations. The score assigned to each acquisition followed the convention applied in previous studies. A substantial IRR was found in the cases of normal LUS ( = 0.74), with only a fair IRR for the presence of individual B-lines ( = 0.36) and for confluent B-lines occupying < 50% ( = 0.26) and a moderate IRR in consolidations and B-lines > 50% ( = 0.50). No statistically significant differences between the longitudinal and transverse scans were found. The IRR for LUS of COVID-19 patients may benefit from more standardized clinical protocols.