Xie C, Sun K, You Y, et al. - Whether lung ultrasound (LUS) affords a feasible and efficacious tool to diagnose postoperative pulmonary complications in patients with hypoxaemia following general anaesthesia, was investigated. Also, the results were compared with those of thoracic computed tomography (CT). Participants were adult patients who underwent general anaesthesia and developed hypoxaemia in the postanaesthesia care unit (PACU). A total of 327 of 1356 lung zones were diagnosed as atelectasis on CT, while LUS detected atelectasis in 311 of the CT-verified zones. Pneumothorax in 75 quadrants was identified by CT scan, 72 of which were identified by LUS. A reliable tool to diagnose atelectasis (sensitivity 98.0%, specificity 96.7% and diagnostic accuracy 97.2%), pneumothorax (sensitivity 90.0%, specificity 98.9% and diagnostic accuracy 96.7%) and pleural effusion (sensitivity 92.9%, specificity 96.0% and diagnostic accuracy 95.1%) was afforded by LUS. In this study, the feasibility, efficiency, as well as accuracy of LUS was evident for diagnosing different aetiologies of postoperative hypoxia in healthy-weight patients in the PACU.