Date of Award

2027

Document Type

Capstone

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Physician Assistant Studies

Committee Chair

LaDonna Clark

Committee Co-Chair (if applicable)

Ashley Kernicky

Abstract

Introduction: Pneumothorax is the presence of air or gas within the pleural space, disrupting normal lung expansion and potentially compromising ventilation and oxygenation. The purpose of this paper is to explore the possibility of using ultrasound to diagnose pneumothorax as opposed to chest radiography.

Methods: PubMed was searched using key terms such as “radiography”, “ultrasonography” and “pneumothorax”. Operators and filters were placed, and 5 articles were ultimately selected for review.

Results: Three articles were directly comparing the diagnostic ability of ultrasound versus chest radiograph in diagnosing pneumothorax, while the other two articles were assessing the accuracy of ultrasound alone with diagnosing pneumothorax. Sensitivity of ultrasound in diagnosing pneumothorax was consistently elevated as compared to radiographs. Specificity for both diagnostic modalities were high with no statistical difference.

Discussion: There are limitations that should be considered when using ultrasound. The main one being that this diagnostic tool is operator dependent, and this may affect the accuracy of the diagnosis. Further research is required with standardized ultrasound protocols to have the utmost confidence in the ability of ultrasonography in diagnosing pneumothorax. However, these studies showed consistent favorable results in ultrasounds ability in diagnosing pneumothorax.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License

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