COVID-19 pneumonia: A review of typical radiological characteristics

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was first discovered after unusual cases of severe pneumonia emerged by the end of 2019 in Wuhan (China) and was declared a global public health emergency by the World Health Organization in January 2020. The new pathogen responsible for the infection, genetically similar to the beta-coronavirus family, is known as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), and the current gold standard diagnostic tool for its detection in respiratory samples is the reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction test. Imaging findings on COVID-19 have been widely described in studies published throughout last year, 2020. In general, ground-glass opacities and consolidations, with a bilateral and peripheral distribution, are the most typical patterns found in COVID-19 pneumonia. Even though much of the literature focuses on chest computed tomography (CT) and X-ray imaging and their findings, other imaging modalities have also been useful in the assessment of COVID-19 patients. Lung ultrasonography is an emerging technique with a high sensitivity, and thus useful in the initial evaluation of SARS-CoV-2 infection. In addition, combined positron emission tomography-CT enables the identification of affected areas and follow-up treatment responses. This review intends to clarify the role of the imaging modalities available and identify the most common radiological manifestations of COVID-19.