Researchers studied whether a quick lung ultrasound could help assess bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), a chronic lung disease, in children. They performed a single ultrasound on 125 children aged 0 to 24 months. The group included healthy full-term children, preterm children without BPD, and preterm children with mild, moderate, or severe BPD.
They found that children with moderate or severe BPD tended to have higher (more abnormal) lung ultrasound scores than healthy children. When they added an abnormal ultrasound score to a model that already included known clinical risk factors, it became better at identifying which children with BPD had a history of being readmitted to the hospital for breathing problems.
It is important to be cautious about these results. The study was small and designed as a one-time look, not a long-term trial. A major limitation was that different people reading the ultrasounds often disagreed on the scores. Also, many children, including some with severe BPD, had completely normal ultrasounds. This means a normal scan does not rule out BPD. The findings are exploratory and show this tool needs much more research before it could be used to guide care.