• Rachele Bonfiglio, Nicola Disma, Nicola Stagnaro, Rossano Girometti, Alice Gentile, Michele Torre, Tiziana Bove, and Luigi Vetrugno.
• Department of Pediatric Anesthesia, Istituto Giannina Gaslini, Genoa, Italy.
• Paediatr Anaesth. 2020 Nov 1; 30 (11): 1224-1232.

BackgroundPectus Excavatum is the most common deformation of the skeletal chest wall, and the Nuss procedure is used to correct this deformation. Residual pneumothorax is a frequent postoperative complication after thoracoscopy. Primary aim of this prospective observational study was to compare the level of agreement among readers using lung ultrasound and chest X-ray.MethodsThis was an inter-reader single-center prospective observational agreement study for lung ultrasound and chest X-ray. Three lung ultrasound evaluations were performed at the end of surgery in the operating room by two Consultant Anesthesiologist (A1 and A2) and by a medical student (A3). Chest X-ray was interpreted by a consultant Radiologist (R1) and a pool of 11 radiologists (collectively named R2). Cohen's kappa was used to evaluate the level of agreement between the two imaging techniques.ResultsSixty-eight pediatric patients were included in the study. The overall agreement among (A = Anesthesiologist) A1, A2, A3, (R = Radiologist) R1, and R2 in assessing pneumothorax was fair (k = 0.32; 95% CI 0.21-0.40). The stratified analysis showed moderate inter-reader agreement among lung ultrasound readers A1, A2, and A3 (k 0.58; 95% CI 0.44-0.71), as opposed to the fair agreement found among chest X-ray readers R1 and R2 (k = 0.39; 95% CI 0.18-0.60).ConclusionsOur results support the use of lung ultrasound to diagnose pneumothorax after Nuss procedure. We found that the inter-reader accuracy was better with ultrasound compared to X-ray at our institution.© 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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