Perspectives on Point-of-Care Ultrasound Use in Pediatric Tropical Infectious Disease

Abstract

Pediatric patients in resource-limited settings are often at high risk of severe manifestations or complications of tropical infectious diseases. Health care providers in these settings often lack access to basic diagnostic imaging. Point-of-care ultrasound is one modality that may improve the care of these children by bringing portable imaging technology to the bedside. To use ultrasound effectively, the clinician must have both the ability to obtain and interpret images and an understanding of the context and presentation of the disease in question. We discuss the utility of point-of-care ultrasound in a variety of pediatric tropical infectious diseases with dual purposes: first, to introduce practitioners with prior ultrasound experience to ways to apply preexisting knowledge in different contexts and, second, to introduce providers in low-resource settings to a diagnostic modality that can be easily learned with discrete protocols and may improve their care of vulnerable patients.