Diagnostic accuracy of lung ultrasound for transient tachypnea: a meta-analysis

The objective of this meta-analysis was to study the diagnostic value of lung ultrasound (LUS) for transient tachypnea of the newborn (TTN).

Embase, Cochrane Library, PubMed, Web of Science, and Google Scholar were searched, and the last search date was October 31, 2020. Studies on the diagnostic accuracy of pulmonary ultrasound for transient tachypnea were included. The quality assessment of the included study was assessed using the Diagnostic Accuracy Studies-2 tool. A meta-analysis was performed using Meta-Disc 1.4. A random-effects model was used and subgroup analysis was carried out to identify possible sources of heterogeneity.

A total of 378 articles were retrieved and nine studies with 3239 patients were included in the present meta-analysis. The overall quality of the included studies was moderate to high. The result of threshold analysis shows that there was no threshold effect. However, there was a significant heterogeneity caused by non-threshold effects in the included studies. A random-effects model was used. The pooled sensitivity, specificity, PLR and NLR were 0.55 (95% CI: 0.51-0.58), 0.98 (95% CI: 0.98-0.99), 58.30 (95% CI: 14.05-241.88) and 0.28 (95% CI: 0.18-0.43). The pooled DOR and AUC were 689.12 (95% CI: 68.71 to 6911.79) and 0.994. The results of subgroup analysis showed that the LUS diagnostic criteria and gold standard might be responsible for heterogeneity. Choosing "DLP combined with B line" as the diagnostic standard of LUS and choosing CXR as the gold standard could significantly improve the diagnostic performance of LUS.

LUS is a promising method to diagnose TTN. Only DLP is not enough to diagnose TTN, while DLP combined with B-line has good diagnostic performance.