Retrospective analysis of the application of CT scan in the emergency department to screen clinically asymptomatic COVID-19 before hospital admission.
Emerg Radiol
; 29(2): 235-241, 2022 Apr.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1611418
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
The necessity to identify and isolate COVID-19 patients to avoid intrahospital cross infections is particularly felt as a challenge. Clinically occult SARS-CoV-2 infection among patients admitted to the hospital is always considered a risk during the pandemic. The aim of our study is to describe the application of CT scan to reveal unexpected COVID-19 in patients needing hospital admission.METHOD:
In our emergency department, we prospectively enrolled adult patients needing hospital admission, without symptoms suspected of COVID-19, and showing negative reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) swab test. CT scan was performed to diagnose clinically occult COVID-19 pneumonia. All the exams were read and discussed retrospectively by two expert radiologists and assigned to one of 4 exclusive diagnoses typical (typCT), indeterminate (indCT), atypical (atyCT), negative (negCT). The clinical characteristics and final diagnoses were described and compared with the results of CT scans.RESULTS:
From May 25 to August 18, 2020, we prospectively enrolled 197 patients. They showed 122 negCT, 52 atyCT, 22 indCT, and 1 typCT. Based on the CT imaging, the prevalence of suspected clinically occult COVID-19 pneumonia was 11.6% (23 patients). None had confirmation of SARS-CoV-2 infection after the hospital stay. Nineteen patients had negative serial RT-PCR while in 4 cases, the infection was excluded by clinical follow-up or appearance of positivity of RT-PCR after months.CONCLUSION:
Our descriptive analysis confirms that CT scan cannot be considered a valid tool to screen clinically occult COVID-19, when the asymptomatic patients need hospitalization for other conditions. Application of personnel protections and distancing among patients remains the best strategies to limit the possibility of intrahospital cross-infections.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
COVID-19
Type of study:
Cohort study
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
/
Randomized controlled trials
Limits:
Adult
/
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
Emerg Radiol
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
S10140-022-02016-6
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