ABSTRACT
BackgroundThe ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) may cause, in addition to lung disease, a wide spectrum of non-respiratory complications. Among these are thromboembolic complications. The theories that explain the mechanism of thromboembolic complications of COVID-19 are accumulating rapidly, and in addition to the role of imaging for assessment of COVID-19 pneumonia, CT may be useful for identification of these complications, such as pulmonary embolism, ischaemic stroke, mesenteric ischaemia, and acro-ischaemia.ResultsThromboembolic manifestations were diagnosed in 10% of our patients (124 patients out of the total 1245 COVID-19 patients);56 patients (45.2%) presented with pulmonary embolism, 32 patients (25.8%) presented with cerebrovascular manifestations, 17 patients (13.7%) presented with limb affection, and 19 patients (15.3%) presented with gastrointestinal thromboembolic complications.Most of our patients had significant comorbidities;diabetes was found in 72 patients (58%), dyslipidemia in 72 patients (58%), smoking in 71 patients (57.3%), hypertension in 63 patients (50.8%), and morbid obesity in 40 patients (32.2%).Thromboembolic events were diagnosed on admission in 41 patients (33.1%), during the first week in 61 patients (49.2%), and after the first week in 22 patients (17.7%).ConclusionsThe incidence of thromboembolic complications in COVID-19 patients is relatively high resulting in a multisystem thrombotic disease. In addition to the crucial role of imaging for assessment of COVID-19 pneumonia, CT is important for assessment of the thromboembolic complications, such as pulmonary embolism, ischaemic stroke, mesenteric ischaemia, and peripheral ischaemia, especially in patients with elevated d-dimer levels and those with sudden clinical deterioration.
ABSTRACT
BackgroundCoronavirus (COVID-19) pneumonia emerged in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. It was highly contagious spreading all over the world, with a rapid increase in the number of deaths. The reported cases have reached more than 14 million with more than 600,000 deaths around the world. So, the pandemic of COVID-19 became a surpassing healthcare crisis with an intensive load on the healthcare resources.In this study, the aim was to differentiate COVID-19 pneumonia from its mimickers as atypical infection, interstitial lung diseases, and eosinophilic lung diseases based on CT, clinical, and laboratory findings.ResultsThis retrospective study included 260 patients, of which 220 were confirmed as COVID-19 positive by two repeated RT-PCR test and 40 were classified as non-COVID by two repeated negative RT-PCR test or identification of other pathogens, other relevant histories, or clinical findings.In this study, 158 patients were male (60.7 %) and 102 patients were female (39.3%). There was 60.9% of the COVID-19 group were male and 39.1% were female. Patients in the non-COVID group were significantly older (the mean age was 46.4) than those in the confirmed COVID-19 group (35.2y). In the COVID-19 group, there was exposure history to positive cases in 84.1% while positive exposure history was 20% in the non-COVID group.ConclusionThe spectrum of CT imaging findings in COVID-19 pneumonia is wide that could be contributed by many other diseases making the interpretation of chest CTs nowadays challenging to differentiate between different diseases having the same signs and act as deceiving simulators in the era of COVID-19.