Lung Ultrasound in Pleuritic Chest Pain

Chest pain is an alarming symptom and one of the most frequent causes of access to the Emergency Departement. Although chest X-ray remains an essential step in the diagnostic process, several studies showed numerous limitations of radiography which frequently is inconclusive. Ultrasonography is a non-radiating imaging technique. Albeit a wide use of ultrasound, the utilization of ultrasound in the study of the lung has only recently been introduced in the clinical practice. Several studies proved that lung ultrasound is useful in the diagnosis of lung consolidation in community acquired pneumonia. Nowadays, ultrasound is not routinely used in the presence of chest pain. Our hypothesis based on clinical experience is that, in patients with pleuritic chest pain, lung ultrasound is very sensitive in detecting pneumonia and other lung diseases (such as pneumothorax) thus performing better than radiography. The primary aim of this study is to verify, in patients affected by pleuritic chest pain, the accuracy of lung ultrasound compared to chest-X-ray. The secondary aim is to evaluate the accuracy of lung ultrasound consolidations in distinguishing lung consolidation in pneumonia, atelectasis, pulmonary infarction, or tumors.