Obligatory medical device diagnostics.
- Continuous monitoring of vital signs:
- Blood pressure (RR): blood pressure measurement/if necessary, invasive blood pressure measurement.
- Pulse/heart rate (HR)
- Respiratory rate (AF)
- Blood oxygen saturation (SpO2) (pulse oximetry; measurement of oxygen saturation of arterial blood and pulse rate).
- X-ray of the thorax (X-ray thorax/chest), in two planes [enhanced pulmonary vascular drawing].
- Electrocardiogram (ECG; recording of the electrical activity of the heart muscle).
Optional medical device diagnostics – depending on the results of the history, physical examination, laboratory diagnostics and obligatory medical device diagnostics – for differential diagnostic clarification.
- Lung sonography (synonyms: lung ultrasonography, LUS) [echo phenomena: comet tail artifacts due to multiple acoustic interfaces between small water-rich structures and surrounding alveolar air in the lung periphery; B lines, “lung rockets”]The sensitivity of ultrasound (percentage of diseased patients in whom the disease is detected by the use of the procedure, ie. i.e., a positive finding occurs) was 96% versus 65% x-ray chest; specificity (likelihood that actually healthy individuals who do not have the disease in question are also detected as healthy by the test): 88% versus 96%
- Echocardiography (echo; cardiac ultrasound) – for suspected structural heart disease.
- Computed tomography of the thorax/chest (thoracic CT) – for further diagnostics.