Diagnostic accuracy and clinical usefulness of lung ultrasound in onco hematological patients with neutropenic fever.

Authors

Carolina Secreto, Veronica Peri, Jessica Gill, Matteo Olivi, Simone Ragaini, Eloise Beggiato, Ernesta Audisio, Benedetto Bruno, Roberto Freilone, Alessandro Busca, Andrea Costamagna, Emanuele Pivetta

Published in

Leukemia & lymphoma. Pages 1-9. Sep 23, 2026. Epub Sep 23, 2026.

Abstract

Lung ultrasound (LUS) is a reliable tool for diagnosing pneumonia, a common complication in onco-hematological patients; however, data in this setting are limited. We assessed the diagnostic accuracy and clinical usefulness of LUS performed by trained hematologists in febrile neutropenic patients, compared to chest X-ray (CXR), and using high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) as reference test. At fever onset, 123 hospitalized neutropenic onco-hematological patients underwent a bedside CXR and LUS. Seventy-one patients underwent HRCT for a positive CXR, persistent fever or respiratory failure, and were included in the analysis. Overall, 39 patients developed pneumonia. Compared to HRCT, LUS and CXR showed a sensitivity of 71.8% and 51.3%, and a specificity of 87.5% and 81.3%, respectively. AUC-ROC was 0.80 for LUS and 0.66 for CXR (p = 0.04). Net reclassification index (NRI) of LUS was 20.5% for pneumonia, and 6.3% for no pneumonia cases. LUS showed high diagnostic accuracy for pneumonia in this setting.

PMID:
42773906
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 23 Sep 2026.

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