International Evidence-Based Recommendations for Point-of-Care Lung Ultrasound: The 2025 Focused Update
The 2025 focused update to the 2012 international consensus on point-of-care lung ultrasound (PoCLUS) delivers 83 expert-agreed statements built on a rigorous Delphi review of nearly 1,800 new publications. It reaffirms PoCLUS as a standalone diagnostic tool for common ultrasound signs such as B-lines, consolidation, and pleural effusion while deliberately deferring integration with other organ-based ultrasound modalities to future work. Complementary 2025 evidence, including a parallel ESICM-ESPNIC consensus and a large diagnostic accuracy meta-analysis, situates this update within a rapidly maturing but still evolving evidence base.
Point-of-care lung ultrasound (PoCLUS) has transformed from a niche skill into a core diagnostic tool across emergency medicine, critical care, pulmonology, and internal medicine over the past decade. It is fast, radiation-free, repeatable at the bedside, and increasingly taught in residency and fellowship curricula worldwide. Given how much the evidence base has grown since the original 2012 international consensus statement, an update was overdue.
That update has now arrived: a 2025 focused revision published in Intensive Care Medicine, led by Volpicelli, Gargani, Zieleskiewicz, and colleagues, which brings the guidance into alignment with over a decade of accumulated research.
This blog walks through what changed, how the update was developed, what clinicians should know about its scope, and how it fits alongside other contemporary lung ultrasound evidence published in the same period.
Why an Update Was Needed
The original 2012 international consensus conference on lung ultrasound was foundational. It established shared terminology, described core ultrasound signs, and outlined clinical applications that helped standardize practice across specialties…
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