Evaluation of acoustic signal features in children with community-acquired pneumonia and pneumonia caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus using the new acoustic monitoring device "Trembita-Corona"
Authors: Khomych Olha , Marushko Yuriy 
Published: July 2023

Early diagnosing pneumonia caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus is an urgent problem today. The diagnosis of pneumonia caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus is difficult, which is why it is promising to use acoustic monitoring to speed up the diagnosis and start of therapy.

Aim: to determine the features of acoustic diagnostics of children with pneumonia caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus using the "Trembita-Corona" acoustic monitoring device to correct and supplement traditional diagnostic methods. That is why respiratory acoustics is currently a promising scientific direction. We, pediatric specialists from Ukraine and leading specialists of the National Aviation University (Ukraine), have developed an experimental sample of the "Trembita-Corona" acoustic monitoring device. This device is used to diagnose breathing sounds. A patent protects the main constructive technical solutions of this device.

Methods. We studied 230 patients aged 1 month to 18 years. The children were divided into 3 groups: 1 group – 100 patients with САР (the PCR test for the determination of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is negative), 2 group -100 healthy children(the PCR test for the determination of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is negative), 3 group - 30 children with pneumonia caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus the PCR test for the determination of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is positive).

The study complied with the international principles of GCP, GLP for clinical research. The protocol was approved at the meeting of the Commission on Bioethical Expertise at the National Medical University, named after O.O. Bogomolets. Mathematical processing was performed on specialized software developed in the Python language in the Google Codelabs environment. Further statistical processing of the obtained results was performed in specialized programs Medstart, EZR (R-Statistics) and "Matlab".

Results. We use the "Trembita-Corona" acoustic monitoring device to analyze sounds at different octaves. In each of the 11 octaves using the "Trembita-Corona" acoustic monitoring device, we investigated the following indicators: the average signal power, frequency of the acoustic signal and amplitude.

Using the аcoustic monitoring device "Trembita-Corona", were found differences between children with САP and healthy ones in average signal power in 0,1,2,3,4,5,6 octaves, in the frequency of the acoustic signal in 0 and 5 octaves, and in the amplitude of the acoustic signal in 0,2,3,4,5,6 octaves. Differences between children with САP and children with pneumonia caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus in terms of average signal power in 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,9 octaves, frequency of the acoustic signal in 0 and 5 octaves, and amplitude of the acoustic signal in 0,1,4,5,6 octaves were also analyzed.

Differences in average signal power and amplitude of the acoustic signal between pneumonia caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus and healthy children were determined in the 2nd octave (p<0.01). Also, differences between these groups were found in the amplitude of the acoustic signal in the 8th octave.

Conclusion. The "Trembita-Corona" acoustic monitoring device is a new and promising acoustic method for determining the location of a pathological process in the lungs. Characteristic differences were found in the average signal power and amplitude of the acoustic signal between pneumonia caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus and healthy children (p<0.01) in the 2nd octave and in the amplitude of the acoustic signal in the 8th octave