Lung ultrasound findings following COVID-19 hospitalization: A prospective longitudinal cohort study.

"Declaration of competing interest TBS reports receiving research grants from 10.13039/100014588Sanofi Pasteur and 10.13039/100006775GE Healthcare, is a Steering Committee member of the Amgen financed GALACTIC-HF trial, on advisory boards for Sanofi Pasteur and Amgen, and has received speaker honorariums from Novartis and Sanofi Pasteur. EP has received research support from the 10.13039/100000002NIH, and consulting fees from scPharmaceuticals outside the submitted work. Her employer has received support from 10.13039/100004336Novartis for consulting work outside the submitted work. The remaining authors have nothing to disclose in relation to the present project."

"Sources of funding TBS, together with KGS and MHL, received a research grant from the 10.13039/501100009708Novo Nordisk Foundation to conduct the study. Europcar Denmark provided cars for KGS and MHL to transport the equipment from hospital to hospital. TBS received funds from Herlev and 10.13039/501100002918Gentofte Hospital and the 10.13039/501100013327Lundbeck foundation while conducting this study. The research salary of PS was sponsored by Herlev and 10.13039/501100002918Gentofte Hospital. The sponsors had no role in the design and interpretation of the data."

"Adult patients hospitalized with laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection at 8 different hospitals in eastern Denmark were enrolled in a prospective, observational, multicenter study (the ECHOVID-19 study) from March 30th to June 3rd, 2020. Patients were enrolled from dedicated COVID-19 non-ICU hospital units. The study design has been described in detail previously [,, , ]. Upon inclusion, patients underwent LUS, laboratory testing and answered a questionnaire. Surviving participants were invited by telephone for a follow-up examination 2–3 months after hospital discharge. If participants did not respond after 3 attempts of contact on 3 separate days, they were excluded from the follow-up study. At the follow-up examination, participants underwent another LUS examination and laboratory testing. Participants also underwent echocardiography at the time of LUS during hospitalization and at follow-up. These results have been published elsewhere [,,]. For this analysis, we only included participants who had ≤1 missing zone on the LUS during hospitalization and at follow-up. Clinical and baseline data as well as in-hospital events were retrieved from the participants’ electronic health records after inclusion in the study. The definitions of hypertension, diabetes mellitus, hypercholesterolemia, heart failure and ischemic heart disease have been described previously []. Development of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) during hospitalization was defined according to the Berlin Criteria []. Venous thromboembolic events consisted of CT-confirmed pulmonary embolism and/or ultrasound-verified deep vein thrombosis []. All included patients provided written informed consent. The study was conducted in accordance with the 2nd Declaration of Helsinki. The ECHOVID-19 Study is registered at Clinicaltrials.gov (NCT04377035)."