This study sought to correlate the presence of pleural-based B-lines seen by emergency department ultrasound performed with the linear transducer with B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) level in patients with suspected congestive heart failure.
Many emergency department (ED) patients with cardiopulmonary symptoms such as chest pain or dyspnea are placed in observation units but do not undergo specific diagnostic testing for pulmonary embolism (PE). The role of observation units in the diagnosis of PE has not been studied. We hypothesized that there was a small but significant rate of unsuspected PE in our observation unit population.
