Computerised tomography (CT) findings and COVID-19 Infection (multiple reviews)

Abstract

What is this? Many research articles have been published about diagnostic features for COVID-19 infection, such as those found with computerised tomography (CT) imaging of the chest. Several rapid reviews are summarised here. More details on each review, including citations and links to the full text, are available further down this web page. What was found: At the time of these reviews, the included studies showed that chest CT imaging has high sensitivity but low specificity for diagnosing COVID-19 infection and the reviews mostly recommended that chest CT not be used as a first-line tool for this diagnosis. However, the Shao review (search done on 7 June 2020) concluded that CT is capable of detecting COVID-19 infection earlier in the infectious course than RT-PCR laboratory tests and concluded that, among surgical patients, chest CT be considered as an additional diagnostic measure before surgery for detecting COVID-19 infection in patients who are symptomatic but have tested negative with RT-PCR. In general, these reviews found that Ground-Glass Opacities (GGO) and consolidation was often reported by CT and pathological signs of COVID-19 were often found in multiple lung lobes and bilaterally. The Xu (search done on 31 March 2020) and Lv reviews (search done on 31 March 2020) reported that lower lobes were frequently affected, and the Wan review (search done on 15 March 2020) reported that most patients in the studies in their review had CT abnormalities noted in the right lower lobe.