• Jitendra Balesa, Vinita Rathi, Sunil Kumar, and Anupama Tandon.
• Indian J Chest Dis Allied Sci. 2015 Jan 1; 57 (1): 7-11.

BackgroundFew studies have assessed the utility of chest ultrasonography in the diagnosis of pneumothorax in India.MethodsChest ultrasonography was undertaken in 126 haemodynamically stable patients, followed by a chest radiograph within 30 minutes. If pneumothorax was not seen on the chest radiograph, a non-contrast computed tomography of the thorax was performed within 3 hours. The time taken to make or exclude a diagnosis of pneumothorax, by ultrasonography, was assessed. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV) and accuracy of chest ultrasonography was estimated.ResultsFor the diagnosis of pneumothorax in any clinical situation, the average time taken on ultrasonography was less than 2 minutes. The sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, PPV and NPV of chest ultrasonography was 89%, 88.5%, 88.9%, 96.7% and 67.6%, respectively.ConclusionsChest ultrasonography can be used as a primary imaging modality in the diagnosis of pneumothorax in a vast variety of clinical situations.

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