Chohan A, Choudhury S, Dadhwal R, Vakil AP, Franco R, Taweesedt PT. Follow-up computed tomography scan in post-COVID-19 pneumonia. World J Radiol 2022; 14(4): 104-106 [PMID: 35646289 DOI: 10.4329/wjr.v14.i4.104]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Pahnwat Tonya Taweesedt, MD, Academic Fellow, Pulmonary Medicine, Corpus Christi Medical Center, 3315 S Alameda St, Corpus Christi, TX 78411, United States. pahnwatt@gmail.com
Research Domain of This Article
Respiratory System
Article-Type of This Article
Letter to the Editor
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Asad Chohan, Saiara Choudhury, Rahul Dadhwal, Abhay P Vakil, Rene Franco, Pahnwat Tonya Taweesedt, Pulmonary Medicine, Corpus Christi Medical Center, Corpus Christi, TX 78411, United States
Author contributions: Chohan A and Taweesedt PT wrote the letter; Choudhury S wrote the letter; Franco R, Dadhwal R, Vakil AP and Taweesedt PT revised the letter.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors declare no conflicts-of-interest related to this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Pahnwat Tonya Taweesedt, MD, Academic Fellow, Pulmonary Medicine, Corpus Christi Medical Center, 3315 S Alameda St, Corpus Christi, TX 78411, United States. pahnwatt@gmail.com
Received: December 17, 2021 Peer-review started: December 17, 2021 First decision: February 21, 2022 Revised: February 24, 2022 Accepted: March 26, 2022 Article in press: March 26, 2022 Published online: April 28, 2022
Abstract
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) global pandemic can be a severe illness that leads to morbidity and mortality. With the increasing number of COVID-19 pneumonia survivors, several long-term changes may persist, including abnormal imaging of lung parenchyma. In addition to the clinical course, it is vital to follow up on pulmonary imaging during the post-infectious period, which is not routinely required in other common pulmonary diagnoses. Computed tomography (CT) scan of the chest is an effective and diagnostic tool for pneumonia which gives an insight into structural abnormalities within the lungs, complications, and possible progression of the disease. Several studies have monitored COVID-19 pneumonia and its complications using serial CT chest imaging from the initial phase of infection, hospitalization, and post-discharge. Nonetheless, long-term follow-up imaging data in post-COVID-19 is still limited. We have summarized the findings utilizing a systematic review of the literature regarding COVID-19 pneumonia imaging, including long-term follow-up.
Core Tip: Changes seen in computed tomography imaging related to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pneumonia appear to progress and peak around two weeks post-hospitalization. Overall improvement and complete resolution of COVID-19 pneumonia-related changes imaging can be seen in the majority of the patients with long-term follow-up. We have summarized the findings utilizing a systematic review of the literature regarding COVID-19 pneumonia imaging, including long-term follow-up.
