Chest CT Findings of COVID-19 Patients with Mild Clinical Symptoms at a Single Hospital in Korea

Purpose@#To retrospectively evaluate the chest computed tomography (CT) findings of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in patients with mild clinical symptoms at a single hospital in South Korea. @*Materials and Methods@#CT scans of 87 COVID-19 patients [43 men and 44 women; median age:41 years (interquartile range: 26.1–51.0 years)] with mild clinical symptoms (fever < 38℃ and no dyspnea) were evaluated. @*Results@#CT findings were normal in 39 (44.8%) and abnormal in 48 (55.2%) patients. Among the 48 patients with lung opacities, 17 (35.4%) had unilateral disease and 31 (64.6%) had bilateral disease. One (2.1%) patient showed subpleural distribution, 9 (18.8%) showed peribronchovascular distribution, and 38 (79.2%) showed subpleural and peribronchovascular distributions.Twenty-two (45.8%) patients had pure ground-glass opacities (GGOs) with no consolidation, 17 (35.4%) had mixed opacities dominated by GGOs, and 9 (18.8%) had mixed opacities dominated by consolidation. No patients demonstrated consolidation without GGOs. @*Conclusion@#The most common CT finding of COVID-19 in patients with mild clinical symptoms was bilateral multiple GGO-dominant lesions with subpleural and peribronchovascular distribution and lower lung predilection. The initial chest CT of almost half of COVID-19 patients with mild clinical symptoms showed no lung parenchymal lesions. Compared to relatively severe cases, mild cases were more likely to manifest as unilateral disease with pure GGOs or GGOdominant mixed opacities and less likely to show air bronchogram.

Clinical Experience with Use of Remdesivir in the Treatment of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2: a Case Series / 감염과화학요법

Background@#A novel antiviral agent, remdesivir (RDV), is a promising candidate treatment for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the absence of any proven therapy.Materials and @*Methods@#This retrospective case series included 10 patients with a clinically and laboratory confirmed diagnosis of severe COVID-19 pneumonia who had received RDV for 5 days (n = 5) or 10 days (n = 5) in the Phase III clinical trial of RDV (GS-US-540-5773) conducted by Gilead Sciences. The clinical and laboratory data for these patients were extracted. @*Results@#One patient in the 10-day group received RDV for only 5 days because of nausea and elevated liver transaminases. No patient had respiratory comorbidity. Seven patients had bilateral lesions and three had unilateral lesions on imaging. All patients had received other medications for COVID-19, including lopinavir/ritonavir and hydroxychloroquine, before administration of RDV. Five patients required supplemental oxygen and one required mechanical ventilation. All patients showed clinical and laboratory evidence of improvement.Half of the patients developed elevated liver transaminases and three had nausea. There were no adverse events exceeding grade 2. @*Conclusion@#Our experience indicates that RDV could be a therapeutic option for COVID-19.A well-designed randomized controlled clinical trial is now needed to confirm the efficacy of RDV in patients with COVID-19.