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8th Winfocus World Congress (Barcelona, Spain - Oct 20-23, 2012)

International evidence-based recommendations for point-of-care lung ultrasound

posted Mar 10, 2012, 1:50 PM by Luca Neri   [ updated Mar 10, 2012, 6:30 PM by Luca Neri ]

After 2 years of hard work the International Liaison Committee on Lung Ultrasound has released and published on the Intensive Care Medicine J the "International evidence-based recommendations for point-of-care lung ultrasound".

This document reflects the overall results of the first consensus conference on "point-of-care" lung ultrasound. Statements were discussed and elaborated by experts who published the vast majority of papers on clinical use of lung ultrasound in the last 20 years. Recommendations were produced to guide implementation, development, and standardization of lung ultrasound in all relevant settings around the globe. Updates will occur at least every 4 years or whenever significant major changes in evidence appear.

The process was endorsed and supported by WINFOCUS, in the framework of the International Consensus Conference (ICC) series, designed to define or upgrade point-of-care ultrasound standards and best practices worldwide. See vision and development plan in the editorial Development of evidence-based clinical recommendations and consensus statements in critical ultrasound field: why and how?.

Paper and electronic supplement at http://www.springerlink.com/content/h451064371735645.


DISCLOSURE:
The corresponding author formally requested for declaration of possible conflict of interest from each of the ILC- LUS member. All the members declared no conflict of interest. 
WINFOCUS organization endorsed the role of main promoter and facilitator. It has supported the development of these guidelines and recommendations by providing the infrastructure and logistics for the process. The funds invested by WINFOCUS on this process were pooled from unconditioned donations to WINFOCUS from multiple resources including commercial and industrial funding. The organization could use these pooled funds at its discretion, either for guideline development or for any other purpose. By having the role of main promoter and facilitator, WINFOCUS organization was able to assure working and scientific independency to the members of the panel. All sessions have been controlled continuously for avoiding external influence. Thereby, no attempt of commercial or industrial interference and no information leakage have been noticed or reported.
No direct sponsorship of any kind has been provided by any kind of commercial or industrial source. No honorarium has been given to any of the panel members.


NOTES on UPCOMING ICCs:
- The results of the 1st ICC on US-guided Vascular Access are currently under submission for final review and editing. Publication is expected by the next 3 months. 
- The 1st ICC on Focused Cardiac Ultrasound, gathering dozens of experts from all over the world has just started in New Delhi, on November 2011. Results are expected to be announced on late October, in Barcelona (Spain), at WINFOCUS 2012.
- On October 2012, Winfocus has planned to endorse the first voting session of the 1st ICC on Trauma Critical Ultrasound, which will be incorporating the results of the previous ICCs, and extend evidence and consensus profiling to all the relevant ABCDE and Head-to-Toes ultrasound applications in trauma care, through intra and extra-hospital scenarios. The first meeting will be followed by other regional and international sessions, to achieve all the goals by March 2014. On March 21st, a preliminary organizational meeting will be held at the Baltimore Shock Trauma Center.