Neonatal common lung diseases: lung ultrasound or chest X-ray?

Abstract

Chest X-ray examination is the traditional methods in the diagnosis of neonatal lung diseases, lung ultrasound (LUS) is the emerging technology in this field.It has confirmed that LUS is more accurate and reliable in diagnosis of lung diseases than X-ray, however, it remains controversy whether or not LUS could replace X-ray as the front-line examination method for neonatal lung diseases.In this paper, we combined the research progress, our clinical application experience and typical cases to elaborate various aspects of the feasibility and necessity of routine use of ultrasound in neonatal wards.We concluded that LUS has many advantages and provides accurate and reliable information, therefore, it might be regularly used in NICUs. Key words: Lung disease; Diagnosis; Differential diagnosis; Lung ultrasound; Chest X-ray; Neonate