Speckle tracking quantification of lung sliding for the diagnosis of pneumothorax: a multicentric observational study.

Purpose: Lung ultrasound is used for the diagnosis of pneumothorax, based on lung sliding abolition which is a qualitative and operator-dependent assessment. Speckle tracking allows the quantification of structure deformation over time by analysing acoustic markers. We aimed to test the ability of speckle tracking technology to quantify lung sliding in a selected cohort of patients and to observe how the technology may help the process of pneumothorax diagnosis.