The following is a summary of “Role of ultrasonography in upper airway assessment: A comparison with computerized tomography measurements,” published in the December 2023 issue of Emergency Medicine by Sen, et al.
For a study, researchers sought to see how measures made with ultrasound (US) and computerized tomography (CT) of the upper airway differ. The main goal was to find out how accurate US measurements are for measuring upper airway sizes when CT is used as the reference. The secondary goal was to find out how long it takes to get US measurements.
The prospective study looked at people ≥18 years old who had a chest or neck CT scan because it was medically necessary. Two experts with different levels of experience did the US measurements for each patient. They didn’t know who did the CT measurements or who did the US measures. The voice cords and the area below the glottis were used to take measurements. It was also written down how long the US show lasted.
94 people were used to get the US and CT measures. In the Bland-Altman test, readings from the US and CT scans were found to be similar. The average vocal cord diameter difference was 0.05 mm, and the subglottic diameter difference was 1.2 mm. It was found that the intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) between the CT and US measures for the vocal cord were 0.993 and 0.609, respectively. In the US, the ICC for vocal cord diameter was 0.992, and for subglottic diameter, it was 0.959. The average time to measure the diameter of the vocal cords in the US was 38 seconds, and the average time to measure the diameter of the subglottic was 49 seconds, with an error of 30 seconds. There is a lot of agreement between US and CT readings, and measurements made by doctors with different amounts of experience agree.
Source: sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0735675723004849
