Lung ultrasound Score in COVID-19: cut-off points for severity degrees. A systematic review and validating cohort Gil Rodríguez, Jaime Martos Ruiz, Michel Benavente Fernández, Alberto Aranda Laserna, Pablo Montero Alonso, Miguel Ángel Peregrina Rivas, José Antonio Fernández Reyes, Daniel Martínez de Victoria Carazo, Javier Guirao Arrabal, Emilio Hernández Quero, José SARS-CoV-2 COVID-19 Lung Ultrasound Disease severity Mortality Gil-Rodríguez J., Martos-Ruiz M., Benavente-Fernández A., Aranda-Laserna P., Montero-Alonso M.Á., Peregrina-Rivas J.A., Fernández-Reyes D., Martínez de Victoria-Carazo J., Guirao-Arrabal E., Hernández-Quero J. (2023). Lung Ultrasound Score severity cut-off points in COVID-19 pneumonia. A systematic review and validating cohort, Medicina Clínica,160 (12), 531-539. Aim: The purpose of this study is to establish different cut-off points based on the Lung Ultrasound Score (LUS) to identify COVID-19 patients as mild, moderate or severe cases. Material and methods: Systematic review of articles consistent with our cohort design, among PubMed, Embase, Scopus, Coronavirus Research Database and Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews databases; from 31st December 2019 to 31st December 2021. Validated by single-centre prospective cohort of adult patients with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, included within first 24 hours of admission. Studied variables were "poor outcome" and 28-days mortality. Results: From 510 articles, 11 articles were included, with a pooled population of 1308 patients; while 127 patients were admitted in our cohort. Only LUS > 15 for the prognostic endpoint "critical disease" could be validated. Both LUS > 15 and LUS > 17 proposed cut-off points showed statistically significant results for poor outcome in our cohort. It was established the reverse association between LUS and poor outcome (odds ratio [OR] = 0.304) and LUS and 28-days mortality (OR = 0.141). LUS < 7 showed high sensitivity (0.94), as LUS > 20 revealed high specificity (0.86). Conclusions: Lung ultrasound is a good predictor of poor outcome and 28-days mortality in COVID-19. LUS ≤ 7 cut-off point is associated with mild pneumonia, LUS 8-20 with moderate pneumonia (8-15 mild-moderate and 16-20 moderate-severe pneumonia) and ≥ 20 with severe pneumonia. If a single cut-off point were used, LUS > 15 is the cut-off point which better discriminate mild from severe disease. 2025-01-29T07:07:06Z 2025-01-29T07:07:06Z 2023 preprint https://hdl.handle.net/10481/100842 https://doi.org/10.1016/J.MEDCLI.2023.01.024 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ open access Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internacional