Prognostic Performance of Bedside Lung Ultrasound Score (LUSS) and ROX Index in Hypoxemic Respiratory Failure Due to COVID-19

Background: Noninvasive ventilation, mainly helmet CPAP, was widely used during the COVID-19 pandemic, even outside of intensive care units. Both the ROX index and the LUS score (LUSS) have been proposed as tools to predict negative outcomes in patients with hypoxemia treated with noninvasive ventilation (NIV) outside of ICUs. We aim to evaluate whether the combination of LUSS with the ROX index improves the predictive performance of these indices in patients with hypoxemia due to COVID-19 pneumonia, treated with NIV outside of ICUs. Methods: This is a monocentric prospective observational study conducted at the university teaching hospital Fondazione IRCCS San Gerardo dei Tintori (Monza, Italy) from February to April 2021. LUSS and ROX were collected at the same time in noninvasively ventilated patients outside of the ICU. An LUS exam was performed by 3 emergency medicine attending physicians with at least 5 years’ experience in point-of-care ultrasonography using a 12-zone system. To evaluate the accuracy of the prognostic indices in predicting a composite outcome (endotracheal intubation and mortality), ROC curves were used. A logistic multivariable model was used to explore the predictors of the composite outcome of endotracheal intubation and in-hospital mortality. An unadjusted Kaplan–Meier analysis was used to explore the association with the composite outcome of survival without invasive mechanical ventilation at the 30-day follow-up by stratifying the 3 indices by their best cut-offs. Results: A total of 79 patients were included in the statistical analysis and stratified into 2 groups based on the presence of a negative outcome, which was reported in 24 patients out of 79 (30%). A great proportion of patients (66 patients—84%) were treated with helmet CPAP. All three indices (LUSS, ROX and LUSS/ROX) were independently associated with negative outcomes in the multivariable analyses. Although the comparison between the AUROC of LUSS or ROX versus LUSS/ROX did not reveal a statistically significant difference, we observed a trend toward a higher accuracy for predicting negative outcomes using the LUSS/ROX index as compared to using LUSS. With the Kaplan–Maier approach, all three indices stratified by the best cut-off reported a significant association with the outcome of 30-day survival without mechanical ventilation. Conclusions: A multimodal noninvasive approach that combines ultrasound (i.e., LUSS) and a bedside clinical evaluation (i.e., the ROX index) may help clinicians to predict outcomes and to identify patients who would benefit the most from invasive respiratory support.