Differentiation of Pulmonary Fibrosis by Means of Quantitative Lung Ultrasound Spectroscopy, First Clinical Study in Humans

Lung ultrasound (LUS) imaging is nowadays recognized as a useful tool to extract clinical information on the state of the lung. Nevertheless, since LUS is mainly based on the interpretation of imaging artifacts, especially the B-line vertical artifacts, the derived diagnoses are subjective and qualitative. This work presents a quantitative method that aims at differentiating pulmonary fibrosis by means of a multifrequency analysis of B-lines performed with an LA533 (Esaote, Florence, Italy) linear array probe connected to the ULA-OP platform. Radio frequency (RF) data acquired from 20 patients and at different imaging frequencies (3, 4, 5, and 6 MHz) were stored, and the B-lines' frequency content (native frequency and bandwidth) was analyzed. The results show the potentiality to exploit the B-lines' frequency content for differentiating PF, in this cohort of patients, with a sensitivity and specificity equal to 100% and 90 %, respectively.