Electrical impedance tomography in children with community acquired pneumonia: preliminary data

Review of electrical impedance tomography in the pediatric patient

Electrical impedance tomography (EIT) is a new method of monitoring non-invasive mechanical ventilation, at the bedside and useful in critically ill patients. It allows lung monitoring of ventilation and perfusion, obtaining images that provide information on lung function. It is based on the physical principle of impedanciometry or the body's ability to conduct an electrical current. Various studies have shown its usefulness both in adults and in pediatrics in respiratory distress syndrome, pneumonia and atelectasis in addition to pulmonary thromboembolism and pulmonary hypertension by also providing information on pulmonary perfusion, and may be very useful in perioperative medicine; especially in pediatrics avoiding repetitive imaging tests with ionizing radiation.

Ventilation improvement after pneumonia treatment evaluated with electrical impedance tomography: an observational study

OBJECTIVE

Due to radiation exposures, not all patients with pneumonia would receive chest x-ray or CT measurements to confirm treatment effectiveness. The aim of the study was to examine the ability of using electrical impedance tomography (EIT) to evaluate the treatment effectiveness in such patient group.

METHODS

A total of 35 consecutive patients with non-severe pneumonia was included in this prospective study. The patients received standard treatment according to our internal protocol. EIT measurements were performed in supine position before the treatment start and on day 6 of the treatment period. EIT-based global inhomogeneity (GI) index and center of ventilation index (CoV) were calculated. Clinical pulmonary infection score (CPIS) was obtained at both time points.

RESULTS

Clinically significant improvements in GI and CoV were found in patient group (ΔGI: -34%±17% and ΔCoV: -10%±11%; p<0.001). Although CPIS was also significantly improved (ΔCPIS -0.70±0.17, p<0.001), no correlations were demonstrated when it compared to ΔGI or ΔCoV.

CONCLUSION

EIT demonstrated individual improvement of ventilation heterogeneity after standard treatment in non-severe pneumonia, which provided different information compared to CPIS. EIT has the potential to become a routine non-invasive, non-radiative tool to assess pneumonia treatment effectiveness.