Tuesday, 13 October 2020

The new frontiers of lung ultrasound

Interview with Libertario Demi, head of the ICLUS project

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During the Covid-19 pandemic, lung ultrasound has been increasingly applied to support the diagnosis, treatment and monitoring of patients affected by the disease.
 
The Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science is actively contributing to the improvement of this diagnostic technology through the ICLUS project, which aims to develop an automatic system to support the diagnosis, monitoring and reporting of patients with Covid-19 pneumonia using artificial intelligence techniques applied to the analysis of ultrasound images.
 
The project latest developments concern the clinical application of the data acquisition and evaluation protocol, which allows an early estimation of the severity and evolution of the disease.
 
“Thanks to a collaboration with the Policlinico San Matteo in Pavia” - explains prof. Libertario Demi, ICLUS scientific coordinator - the protocol was applied to a first cohort of 52 patients, reaching a validation of its prognostic value. The study results will be published shortly in the Journal of Ultrasound in Medicine”.
 
The project had also an important impact locally: "With the contribution of the Fondazione per la Valorizzazione della Ricerca Trentina (VRT) - Demi recalls - 12 wireless scanners were distributed throughout the Trentino area, thus hospitals will be able to implement our imaging protocol".
 
In addition, the collaboration between the Department and the Provincial Health Services Agency (APSS) is getting more intense and prolific. Specific training is provided to clinicians in order to develop the expertise required to use the protocol in daily clinical practice. For this purpose, prof. Demi is one of the teachers of the theoretical and practical course "Lung Ultrasound in the COVID era", addressed to APSS medical managers, which will be held on 26-27 October 2020 at Polo Ferrari 1 in Povo.
 
“Lung Ultrasound can also be used beyond Covid-19 - comments prof. Demi - we can work on a wide range of pathologies affecting this important organ and make a significant contribution to the clinical field”.

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