Pilot study on nocturnal monitoring of crackles in children with pneumonia

Screenshot of the nocturnal lung sound recording of a 3.8-year-old boy with left-sided paracardial infiltrates on the chest radiograph. Microbiological assessment revealed infection with Mycoplasma pneumonia. The leukocyte count was 10.4 G·L⁻¹, the C-reactive protein level <5 mg·L⁻¹. The graphical user interface consists of a context menu and operating elements in the upper part. The event charts represent an overview of the breath rate in blue, cough events in green, wheezing in red, other sounds in orange and comments in black. Single recording periods can be selected and evaluated with the help of the scroll bar of the corresponding time period shown in grey below. The volume level of the outer microphone is shown in the next bar. The next three segment charts below display the recorded sound spectrum over a 30-second time period separated for trachea, left lung and right lung followed by another segment chart for the recorded events below.

The spectrogram at time epoch 210 (23:45:00–23:45:30 h) is showing fine crackles (high-frequency sharp peaks) and coarse crackles (peaks of slightly lower frequency and slightly longer duration) on the chart of the left lung but not on the charts of the right lung or trachea.