Amin Mahsouli, Melissa Grillo, Nadia Amini, Souad Acid, Emmanuel Coche, Benoît GhayePublished in the journal : May 2020Category : Radiologie
In December 2019, a new type of coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) spread from China to all around the world. Chest imaging has emerged as a valuable tool for the workup of COVID-19, notably for triaging symptomatic patients to COVID-19 or non-COVID-19 units in anticipation of the reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) results. The findings observed on computed tomography (CT) in this context are highly sensitive, but they are not specific for this pathology. Chest CT most frequently reveals bilateral multilobar ground-glass opacities with a peripheral or posterior distribution. A correlation has been demonstrated between the radiological extent and evolution of chest findings and the clinical course of the disease. CT lesions may precede the onset of symptoms, which confirms the high sensitivity of this technique. This literature review was aimed at highlighting the usefulness of chest imaging in the diagnosis of COVID-19, which exhibits typical and less typical CT features, as well as radiological severity criteria, and in the triaging of patients.
The IQON spectral CT scanner manufactured by Philips Healthcare has been installed at the beginning of May 2016 in our department of radiology. The CT scanner is performing all types of examinations but is more dedicated to patients referred from the emergency unit. We are performing an average of 40 patients per day with approximately half of them coming directly from the emergency room. After a few months of use, this machine with a 4 cm coverage, rotation time of 0.27 sec and spectral data analysis “on demand” appears especially designed for emergency cases and will definitely change our work-up of such patients where CT constitutes the front line examination with a major role in patient triage. The Spectral Diagnostic Suite is designed to display the spectral data very rapidly after the CT acquisition. The radiologist is able to load the images and analyze the spectral data within 2-3 minutes. In the scenario of emergency situations, some characteristics of the spectral CT seem very promising. The aim of this article is to share with you our preliminary experience of the IQON CT and highlight the applications which seem to be the most useful in the emergency situations.