How do we obtain an ultrasound image of the lungs?
Use a lung preset if available. Otherwise the abdominal preset can be used. Disable artifact filters and post processing functions.
Lung Ultrasound relies heavily on artifact generation as the lung is an air filled organ.
Scan at depth of 5-6cm with the high frequency linear probe to identify pleura. Scan at depth of 12-16cm with the low frequency curvilinear probe for lung parenchyma.
Lung scanning should be performed in the longitudinal and transverse plane with the transducer perpendicular to skin. The transducer marker should face cephalad or towards patients right.
M Mode is useful to evaluate lung sliding or lung pulse. The transducer must be placed at 90 degrees (perpendicular) to skin in order to visualize the pleura and for artifacts to be generated. Artifacts in ultrasound imaging is described in the basic ultrasound physics module.