Monitoring of Lung Fluid Status of Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients by Lung Impedance Technique

COVID 19 is a novel and severe disease. One of the problems is that the virus disturbs the lungs and cause water accumulation in lungs alveolus (ARDS). Water accumulation in pulmonary alveoli leads to fast deterioration and, eventually death. It is important to note that at an early stage of the disease, when the patient feels relatively good, fluid progressively accumulates into the lung.

Today chest X-ray is the only practical way to check the degree of lung accumulation. Chest X ray is a cumbersome method and has a rotational burden. One of the disadvantages of the x-ray is that interpretation of x-ray results are operator dependent. Another disadvantage is the daily monitoring of lung fluids, which is expensive.

Lung impedance technology allows simple lung fluid monitoring, and found to be effective in HF patients who suffers from the same problem, fluid accumulation in lungs. Lung fluid monitoring using lung impedance device may assist physicians to reveal fluid accumulation in lungs, and give better understanding of the severity of the situation. Moreover, better impedance values indicate improvement in patient's condition and also effectiveness of the treatment.

The aim of the study is to prove the correlation between lung fluid assessed by impedance technique and x-ray examinations. To find correlation between lung fluid assessment by impedance and clinical parameters of COVID 19 patients.

In a case that this correlation would be found high, then it will be possible to establish monitoring of lung fluid status of COVID 19 patients using lung impedance device, as a simple and reliable way to determine degree of patient's deterioration as it was proved for HF patients.