Diagnosis of Pneumothorax by Radiography and Ultrasonography -- A Meta-analysis.
Chest. 2011 May 5;
Authors: Ding W, Shen Y, Yang J, He X, Zhang M
ABSTRACT OBJECTIVE: To compare, by a meta-analysis, anterior-posterior chest radiography (CR) with transthoracic ultrasonography (US) for diagnosis of pneumothorax. METHODS: English language articles on the diagnostic performance of CR and/or US for diagnosis of a pneumothorax were selected. In eligible studies, data were recalculated and the forest plots and summary receiver operating characteristic (sROC) curves were analyzed with Meta-Disc software. RESULTS: Pooled sensitivity and specificity were 0.88 and 0.99, respectively, for US, and 0.52 and 1.00, respectively, for CR. For US performed by clinicians other than radiologists, pooled sensitivity and specificity were 0.89 and 0.99, respectively. The areas under the sROC curves were compared and no significant differences between US and CR were found. Meta-regression analysis implied that the operator is strongly associated with accuracy (relative DOR = 0.21; 95%CI: 0.05-0.96; p = 0.0455) CONCLUSIONS: The meta-analysis indicated that bedside US performed by clinicians had higher sensitivity and similar specificity compared with CR in the diagnosis of pneumothorax. But the accuracy of US in diagnosis of pneumothorax depended on the skill of the operators.
PMID: 21546439 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]