CORonavirus (COVID-19) Diagnostic Lung UltraSound study (COR-DLUS) [COVID-19]
Research type
Research Study
Full title
CORonavirus (COVID-19) Diagnostic Lung UltraSound Study
IRAS ID
282661
Contact name
John P Corcoran
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 6 months, 0 days
Research summary
This study examines the role of lung ultrasound in patients with confirmed and suspected novel coronavirus-induced disease (COVID-19). Point-of-care lung ultrasound (LUS) examination is used with increasing regularity by clinicians as part of everyday clinical care [Volpicelli et al., 2012] – it has demonstrated particular benefit in areas such as emergency departments [Cortellaro et al., 2012] and intensive care units [Xirouchaki et al., 2011] where access to more conventional imaging studies such as CXR or CT can be challenging due to patient characteristics, or where these tests are known to have limited diagnostic utility. As well as being more portable and capable of being brought directly to the patient’s bedside, LUS has the additional patient safety advantage of not requiring the use of ionising radiation. LUS can provide the responsible clinician with immediate diagnostic information that can then be used to inform clinical decision making in a timely fashion, with the potential to improve clinical outcomes and streamline treatment pathways [Laursen et al., 2014]. Prior published data in this field suggest that LUS can outperform conventional CXR in identifying a number of common cardiorespiratory conditions that present acutely to hospital admission units [Chavez et al., 2014; Maw et al., 2019]. The nature of the lung parenchymal changes caused by COVID-19 with a sub-pleural (peripheral) predominance suggest this particular condition should lend itself to initial identification and subsequent surveillance on LUS examination. Furthermore, the more subtle peripheral ground-glass changes that are seen early in the disease process on CT may be more easily and consistently picked up on LUS than CXR by individual clinicians.This study will allow us to understand the role of LUS as a bedside diagnostic and monitoring tool in patients with suspected and/or diagnosed COVID-19.
REC name
North East - York Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
20/NE/0120
Date of REC Opinion
29 Apr 2020
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion