Point-of-care ultrasound for dyspnea diagnosis: Correlation with final diagnosis

Title

Point-of-care ultrasound for dyspnea diagnosis: Correlation with final diagnosis

Authors

Meena Maddineni¹, Santosh K. Rathia¹, Chandan K. Dey^1,*, Varun Anand², Saroj Pati³ & Biraj Majumder¹

Affiliation

¹Department of Trauma & Emergency, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Raipur, India; ²Department of Pediatrics, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Raipur, India; ³Department of Radiodiagnosis, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Raipur, India; *Corresponding author

Meena Maddineni - E-mail: maddinenimeena@gmail.com

Santosh K. Rathia - E-mail: drsantoshrathia@aiimsraipur.edu.in

Chandan K. Dey - E-mail: chandandey@aiimsraipur.edu.in

Varun Anand - E-mail: varun1616@gmail.com

Saroj Pati - E-mail: saroj.pati@gmail.com

Biraj Majumder - E-mail: dr.birajmajumder@gmail.com

Article Type

Research Article

Date

Received July 1, 2026; Revised July 31, 2026; Accepted July 31, 2026, Published July 31, 2026

Abstract

Acute dyspnea requires rapid etiological diagnosis, yet distinguishing cardiac and pulmonary causes remains challenging in emergency settings. This prospective study evaluated 144 adults with acute dyspnea using structured point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) of the lungs, heart, inferior vena cava and deep veins. Pneumonia (27.1%), heart failure (25.7%) and obstructive airway disease (22.2%) were the most frequent diagnoses. POCUS achieved 93.1% diagnostic accuracy with excellent agreement with the final diagnosis (κ=0.859, p<0.01) and showed high sensitivity and specificity across major etiologies. Thus, data shows that POCUS as a reliable bedside modality for early evaluation of acute dyspnea, particularly in resource-limited settings.

Keywords

Acute dyspnea, point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS), lung ultrasound, emergency medicine

Citation

Maddineni et al. Bioinformation 22(7): 4097-4102 (2026)

Edited by

Ruby Singh

ISSN

0973-2063

Publisher

Biomedical Informatics

License

This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.