key: cord-1013195-sn9mg3dc
authors: Lee, Mi-Jung; Goo, Hyun Woo
title: Role of Chest Computed Tomography in Children with Pneumonia Associated with Coronavirus Disease 2019
date: 2020-05-12
journal: Korean J Radiol
DOI: 10.3348/kjr.2020.0301
sha: cd2a43a1fa1ee4d5cbdbba7bbde1408aa5de81d4
doc_id: 1013195
cord_uid: sn9mg3dc

nan

inconspicuous, and differentiating them from dependent lung opacities may be difficult in young children. In addition, these small lesions may be blurred by motion artifacts that are often seen on pediatric chest CT. Therefore, we should interpret such early lesions carefully and perform chest CT with optimized scan techniques.

The typical CT findings of COVID-19 pneumonia in adults include bilateral GGO and consolidation (6), and chest CT shows a high sensitivity of 97% (4). However, a recent report by Hosseiny et al. (7) demonstrated that the imaging features of COVID-19 are variable and nonspecific and show significant overlaps with those of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome. As in children with COVID-19 pneumonia (8, 9), the CT findings of children with SARS are also nonspecific (10). Because the CT findings of coronavirus pneumonia are often nonspecific and overlap with other types of viral pneumonia, the differential diagnosis obtained using CT findings could be challenging, particularly in the presence of coinfection, as is common in children (8).

In pediatric patients, disease detection is more important than the differentiation of pneumonia. As emphasized by Lan et al. (5), there have been cases of laboratory confirmed but asymptomatic pediatric patients with chest CT lesions (11-13). With human-to-human transmission among close contacts and an incubation period of 2 weeks (average: 5 days) (11, 14), diagnosing these asymptomatic pediatric patients is of great significance for early control of infection spread via asymptomatic carriers. Chest CT is crucial for the diagnosis of COVID-19 pneumonia in pediatric patients since chest radiographs are frequently unremarkable (15). To define the role of chest CT in pediatric COVID-19 pneumonia, additional efforts are warranted with the aim of Korean J Radiol 2020;21 (7) obtaining high-quality CT scans, avoiding false-positive and false-negative lesions, describing more detailed imaging features, including lobar distribution of the lesions, and performing qualitative and quantitative assessments of the disease extent.

Characteristics of and important lessons from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak in China: summary of a report of 72314 cases from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention

Chinese Medical Association; Chinese Medical Doctor Association Committee on Respirology Pediatrics; China Medicine Education Association Committee on Pediatrics; Chinese Research Hospital Association Committee on Pediatrics; Chinese Nongovernment Medical Institutions Association Committee on Pediatrics; China Association of Traditional Chinese Medicine

Committee on Children's Safety Medication; Global Pediatric Pulmonology Alliance. Diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of 2019 novel coronavirus infection in children: experts' consensus statement

Radiological findings from 81 patients with COVID-19 pneumonia in Wuhan, China: a descriptive study

The authors have no potential conflicts of interest to disclose.ORCID iDs Mi-Jung Lee https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3244-9171 Hyun Woo Goo https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6861-5958