This is an automatically translated article.
The article is professionally consulted by Master, Doctor Le Xuan Thiep - Department of Diagnostic Imaging - Vinmec Ha Long International Hospital
Shortness of breath is a feeling that makes the patient breathe abnormally, uncomfortable when breathing, worse than breathing difficulty. Dyspnea occurs for many reasons, making it difficult to diagnose and treat, especially in patients with acute, severe episodes of dyspnea. To assess the initial condition, the doctor will order a lung ultrasound in a patient with shortness of breath.
1. What is a lung ultrasound?
Ultrasound is a technique that uses high-frequency sound waves to shape and reconstruct images of structures inside the body. This is one of the paraclinical methods to help diagnose, monitor and treat common diseases, applied in most medical facilities.
Pulmonary ultrasound works like other ultrasound techniques. Using a probe device, position the probe in certain positions to diagnose abnormal syndromes in patients such as gas in the lung parenchyma, presence of fluid in the lung parenchyma, signs of solidification. pneumothorax, pneumothorax, and other pleural abnormalities.
Lung ultrasound technology helps doctors to evaluate, detect, diagnose and treat diseases related to the respiratory tract.
Siêu âm là một trong những phương pháp chẩn đoán cận lâm sàng được sử dụng phổ biến
2. When is a lung ultrasound needed?
When having difficulty breathing, usually patients are suffering from diseases related to the lungs or respiratory tract, patients will have symptoms from mild to severe with different body conditions.
Continuous cough, persistent cough, can be dry cough or cough with phlegm.
Pathological cough is often accompanied by the following manifestations:
Wheezing, shallow, short breathing, rapid breathing, opening of the mouth when breathing due to not getting enough oxygen. Coughing continuously, often coughing more in the early morning. Hemoptisi. Shortness of breath when changing positions such as lying down, changing from lying to sitting or standing. Chest tightness when coughing, palpitations, wheezing, snoring while sleeping, fever, fatigue, weight loss, confusion when coughing, sore throat There is sputum in the neck, the sputum may be yellow-gray, green green or opaque white. There may be mild fever, chills. Occurs when the patient has an infection, virus or inflammation, for example the patient is positive for covid 19
3. Advantages of lung ultrasound
Ultrasound is a simple, fast and easy-to-use diagnostic technique that helps doctors assess the initial condition of a patient.
Siêu âm phổi là phương pháp an toàn, nhanh chóng và dễ sử dụng
Lung ultrasound can detect signs of respiratory failure, pulmonary edema, pleural effusion, pneumothorax, lung ultrasound can diagnose other abnormalities such as pleuralgia, broken ribs ...
In addition, the cost of performing lung ultrasound is low.
4. Management of patients with difficulty breathing
Initial assessment:
Initial assessment to check the patient's level of dyspnea through a number of ways: Dyspnea Scoring: Let the patient estimate their own level of dyspnea on a scale of 0 up to 10 (same for pain score) Nurses determine severity by exertion causing dyspnea: at rest, mild exertion such as normal walking, moderate exertion such as climbing stairs, exertion as much as running. Management of dyspnea in patients with signs of severe dyspnea:
Place the patient in a supine position with head elevated, with a flexed neck, and put on a Mayo anti-tongue. Suction all sputum, aspirate bronchi if there is stagnation in the throat. Place patient in a supine position if there is a risk of aspiration. Intubation in severe cases Giving the patient an oxygen tank Artificial ventilation by squeezing a balloon, giving the patient medication The lung ultrasound technique has many advantages, but it also has certain limitations such as no diagnosed lung cancer. The lungs are the place where the body's gas is stored, so the conduction of sound will be blocked. In this case, the patient will be assigned by the doctor to perform a number of other indications to evaluate correctly.
Kỹ thuật siêu âm phổi không chẩn đoán được u phổi
Thus, the high accuracy of lung ultrasound results depends on the ultrasound equipment, the technician performing and the doctor reading the results. Vinmec International General Hospital is a high-quality medical facility in Vietnam, equipped with international standard facilities to help bring comfort to patients during examination and treatment. With the most modern medical equipment along with a team of highly qualified doctors and nurses, it helps to diagnose and treat quickly and effectively.
Lung ultrasound does not harm health, can be performed many times, gives high accuracy results, low cost, quick implementation process. However, the results of pleural ultrasonography are highly dependent on the ultrasound device. Modern equipment will give sharper, more detailed and specific images. From there, it is easy to detect abnormal signs even at an early stage with very small manifestations.
Vinmec International General Hospital is the leading prestigious medical examination and treatment facility in the country. Vinmec owns the most modern and advanced medical equipment system in the world. Together with a team of highly qualified and experienced doctors, they bring optimal treatment results to patients.
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