International Expert Consensus Statement on Chest Imaging in Pediatric COVID-19 Patient Management: Imaging Findings, Imaging Study Reporting, and Imaging Study Recommendations

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has quickly spread since it was first detected in December 2019 and has evolved into a global pandemic with over 1.7 million confirmed cases in over 200 countries around the world at the time this document is being prepared. Owing 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 the evaluation of pediatric patients with COVID-19; however, there is currently little information available describing imaging manifestations of COVID-19 in pediatric patients and even less information discussing the utilization of imaging studies in pediatric patients. To specifically address these concerns, a group of international experts in pediatric thoracic imaging from five continents convened to create a consensus statement describing the imaging manifestations of COVID-19 in the pediatric population, discussing the potential utility of structured reporting during the COVID-19 pandemic, and generating consensus recommendations for utilization of chest radiographs and CT in the evaluation of pediatric patients with COVID-19. The results were compiled into two structured reporting algorithms (one for chest radiographs and one for chest CT) and eight consensus recommendations for the utilization of chest imaging in pediatric COVID-19 infection. © RSNA, 2020.