Quantitative lung ultrasound spectroscopy, an in vivo clinical study conducted over 101 patients

Lung ultrasound (LUS) is widely adopted to assess the state of the lung surface. However, as standard ultrasound imaging assumptions are unmet in the lung due to the presence of air, essentially this organ cannot be anatomically investigated. Indeed, LUS is mainly based on the analysis of imaging artifacts (horizontal and vertical). Of particular interest is the analysis of vertical artifacts, as they correlate with several pathologies. More specifically, their dependence on frequency was demonstrated to carry important diagnostic information capable to improve LUS specificity. In this study, a new dataset was generated acquiring raw radiofrequency (RF) data from 101 patients (affected by different pathologies, e.g., COVID-19 pneumonia and cardiogenic edema). The ULA-OP research platform was used to collect the data, and a multifrequency approach implemented on both linear and convex probes was adopted. Ultrasound data were thus acquired utilizing orthogonal sub-bands with a 1-MHz bandwidth and with different center frequencies (2–6 MHz). About 12 000 and 3600 multifrequency frames were acquired with convex and linear probes, respectively. Clinical parameters (e.g., FIO2 and LDH) were also stored for all patients. During this meeting, the dataset will be presented together with preliminary results, and its potential applications discussed. [Meeting abstract. No PDF available.]