As the data emerges from the growing number of COVID-19 cases worldwide, radiologists are finding differences in the CT and x-ray findings among children and adults. Now a group of pediatric thoracic experts from five continents have published an international consensus statement offering guidelines for pediatric imaging in cases of COVID-19, published in Radiology: Cardiothoracic Imaging.
“Due to the novel nature of the virus and the rapidly evolving understanding of the disease, there is a great deal of uncertainty surrounding the diagnosis and management of COVID-19 pneumonia in pediatric patients. Chest imaging plays an important role in evaluation of pediatric patients with COVID- 19, however there is currently little information available describing imaging manifestations of pediatric COVID-19 and even less discussing utilization of imaging studies in pediatric patients,” the authors wrote.
Although COVID-19 predominantly affects the adult population, recently there have been increasing reports in the media of infected pediatric patients and young adults; especially in the United States of America. Furthermore, although pediatric patients are more likely to have a milder clinical course, they are just as likely as adults to become infected and thus play an important role in ongoing disease transmission.
Unfortunately, despite increasingly reported pediatric cases and their potential role in disease spread, the published literature for pediatric COVID-19 infections is limited; particularly as pertains to imaging manifestations of pediatric COVID-19 pneumonia. However, within the currently available scarce literature, there are differences emerging in imaging features between pediatric and adult cases of COVID-19 pneumonia of which both radiologists and referring physicians should be aware.
Find the guidelines in Radiology: Cardiothoracic Imaging.
Featured image: 16-year-old female with tuberous sclerosis and positive COVID-19 RT-PCR test who presented with acute hypoxic respiratory distress. Frontal chest radiograph shows bilateral lower lung zone-predominant consolidation and ground-glass opacities, which is typical CXR findings of pediatric COVID-19 pneumonia. Also noted are endotracheal tube and nasogastric tube.
