TY - JOUR T1 - ERS statement on chest imaging in acute respiratory failure JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J DO - 10.1183/13993003.00435-2019 SP - 1900435 AU - Davide Chiumello AU - Giuseppe Francesco Sferrazza Papa AU - Antonio Artigas AU - Belaid Bouhemad AU - Aleksandar Grgic AU - Leo Heunks AU - Klaus Markstaller AU - Giulia M. Pellegrino AU - Lara Pisani AU - David Rigau AU - Marcus J. Schultz AU - Giovanni Sotgiu AU - Peter Spieth AU - Maurizio Zompatori AU - Paolo Navalesi Y1 - 2019/01/01 UR - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/early/2019/06/19/13993003.00435-2019.abstract N2 - Chest imaging in patients with acute respiratory failure plays an important role in diagnosing, monitoring and assessing the underlying disease. The available modalities range from plain chest x ray to computed tomography, lung ultrasound, electrical impedance tomography and positron emission tomography. Surprisingly, there are presently no clear-cut recommendations for critical care physicians regarding indications and limitations of these different techniques.The purpose of the present European Respiratory Society (ERS) statement is to provide physicians with a comprehensive clinical review of chest imaging techniques for the assessment of patients with acute respiratory failure, based on the scientific evidence as identified by systematic searches. For each of these imaging techniques, the panel evaluated the following items: possible indications, technical aspects, qualitative and quantitative analysis of lung morphology and the potential interplay with mechanical ventilation. A systematic search of the literature was performed from inception to September 2018. A first search provided 1834 references. After evaluating the full text and discussion among the committee, 135 references were used to prepare the current statement.These chest imaging techniques allow a better assessment and understanding of the pathogenesis and pathophysiology of patients with acute respiratory failure, but have different indications and can provide additional information to each other.FootnotesThis manuscript has recently been accepted for publication in the European Respiratory Journal. It is published here in its accepted form prior to copyediting and typesetting by our production team. After these production processes are complete and the authors have approved the resulting proofs, the article will move to the latest issue of the ERJ online. Please open or download the PDF to view this article.Conflict of interest: Dr. Chiumello has nothing to disclose.Giuseppe FrancescoConflict of interest: Dr. Artigas reports grants from Grifols, grants from Fisher& Paykel, grants from Fundacion Areces, grants from Instituto Carlos III, outside the submitted work.Conflict of interest: Dr. BOUHEMAD has nothing to disclose.Conflict of interest: Dr. Grgic reports personal fees from MSD, personal fees from Boehringer-Ingelheim, personal fees from Roche, personal fees from Bayer Vital, outside the submitted work.Conflict of interest: Dr. heunks reports personal fees from Maquet critical care, grants from Ventfree, grants from Orionpharma, outside the submitted work.Conflict of interest: Dr. Markstaller has nothing to disclose.Conflict of interest: Dr. Pellegrino has nothing to disclose.Conflict of interest: Dr. Pisani has nothing to disclose.Conflict of interest: Dr. Rigau reports and declares he works as methodologist of the ERS.Conflict of interest: Dr. Schultz has nothing to disclose.Conflict of interest: Dr. Sotgiu has nothing to disclose.Conflict of interest: Dr. Spieth has nothing to disclose.Conflict of interest: Dr. Zompatori has nothing to disclose.Conflict of interest: Dr. Navalesi has nothing to disclose.Conflict of interest: Dr. Sferrazza Papa has nothing to disclose. ER -