Chest imaging in COVID-19

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Amin Mahsouli, Melissa Grillo, Nadia Amini, Souad Acid, Emmanuel Coche, Benoît Ghaye Published in the journal : May 2020 Category : Radiologie

Summary :

In December 2019, a new type of coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) spread from China to all around the world. Chest imaging has emerged as a valuable tool for the workup of COVID-19, notably for triaging symptomatic patients to COVID-19 or non-COVID-19 units in anticipation of the reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) results. The findings observed on computed tomography (CT) in this context are highly sensitive, but they are not specific for this pathology. Chest CT most frequently reveals bilateral multilobar ground-glass opacities with a peripheral or posterior distribution. A correlation has been demonstrated between the radiological extent and evolution of chest findings and the clinical course of the disease. CT lesions may precede the onset of symptoms, which confirms the high sensitivity of this technique. This literature review was aimed at highlighting the usefulness of chest imaging in the diagnosis of COVID-19, which exhibits typical and less typical CT features, as well as radiological severity criteria, and in the triaging of patients.

Key Words

Chest CT, COVID-19, pneumonia, ground glass, pulmonary embolism