• Diego Palumbo, Alberto Zangrillo, Alessandro Belletti, Giorgia Guazzarotti, Maria Rosa Calvi, Francesca Guzzo, Renato Pennella, Giacomo Monti, Chiara Gritti, Marilena Marmiere, Margherita Rocchi, Sergio Colombo, Davide Valsecchi, Anna Mara Scandroglio, Lorenzo Dagna, Patrizia Rovere-Querini, Moreno Tresoldi, Giovanni Landoni, Francesco De Cobelli, and COVID-BioB Study Group.
• Department of Radiology, IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy; School of Medicine, Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy.
• J Crit Care. 2021 Dec 1; 66: 141914-19.

PurposeTo determine whether Macklin effect (a linear collection of air contiguous to the bronchovascular sheath) on baseline CT imaging is an accurate predictor for subsequent pneumomediastinum (PMD)/pneumothorax (PNX) development in invasively ventilated patients with COVID-19-related acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).Materials And MethodsThis is an observational, case-control study. From a prospectively acquired database, all consecutive invasively ventilated COVID-19 ARDS patients who underwent at least one baseline chest CT scan during the study time period (February 25th, 2020-December 31st, 2020) were identified; those who had tracheal lesion or already had PMD/PNX at the time of the first available chest imaging were excluded.Results37/173 (21.4%) patients enrolled had PMD/PNX; specifically, 20 (11.5%) had PMD, 10 (5.8%) PNX, 7 (4%) both. 33/37 patients with subsequent PMD/PNX had Macklin effect on baseline CT (89.2%, true positives) 8.5 days [range, 1-18] before the first actual radiological evidence of PMD/PNX. Conversely, 6/136 patients without PMD/PNX (4.4%, false positives) demonstrated Macklin effect (p < 0.001). Macklin effect yielded a sensitivity of 89.2% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 74.6-96.9), a specificity of 95.6% (95% CI: 90.6-98.4), a positive predictive value (PV) of 84.5% (95% CI: 71.3-92.3), a negative PV of 97.1% (95% CI: 74.6-96.9) and an accuracy of 94.2% (95% CI: 89.6-97.2) in predicting PMD/PNX (AUC:0.924).ConclusionsMacklin effect accurately predicts, 8.5 days in advance, PMD/PNX development in COVID-19 ARDS patients.Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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