Exclusion criteria of acutely ill patients
Instead, we excluded patients belonging to group 1 of our study sample -acutely ill children - but who also had acute upper or lower respiratory tract infections (attested by molecular and cultural microbiological examinations of the airways). In addition, we excluded patients with histories or symptoms and signs of other acute and chronic respiratory diseases (aspiration pneumonia, pneumothorax, pulmonary embolism, interstitial fibrosis, pneumonectomy outcomes, respiratory tract abnormalities), with a history of immunodeficiency, paralysis brain, neuromuscular diseases and malignant tumors because LUS can provide only limited findings to identify a pattern of lung imbibition from non-primarily cardiac causes in these patients.