Chest Imaging of COVID-19 Pneumonia

Abstract

Clinical Image A 52-year-old female presented to the emergency department (ED) with fatigue, shortness of breath and cough eight days after being diagnosed with COVID-19. She appeared ill but not toxic, and uncomfortable but not in extremis. Her chest x-ray revealed patchy opacities in bilateral lung bases consistent with multifocal pneumonia (figure 1). She was mildly tachypneic, tachycardic and hypoxic, which prompted the team to order a computed tomography angiogram (CTA) to rule out a pulmonary embolism and further evaluate the infiltrates seen on her chest x-ray. The CTA revealed peripheral, bilateral ground glass opacities with consolidation involving all five lobes of her lungs (Figure 2) and no evidence of pulmonary emboli. Such findings are commonly reported imaging features of COVID-19 pneumonia [1].