Detection of incidental findings on chest CT scans in patients with suspected COVID-19 pneumonia

Abstract

IntroductionIn the last months of 2019, cases of pneumonia due to a new type of coronavirus of unknown etiology and deaths due to severe respiratory distress were reported in Wuhan, China (1).It resulted in the identification of a new type of coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) as the cause in January 2020, and the name of the disease was accepted as COVID-19 (2).The resulting SARS-CoV-2 spread rapidly around the world, and the associated COVID-19 has become a worldwide threat and health problem.Then it was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11, 2020 (3-5).Symptoms of COVID-19 range from asymptomatic infection and mild upper respiratory illness to severe pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), multiple organ failure, and death (1,(6)(7)(8).According to WHO data, the pandemic affected more than 192 million people from its outbreak in China at the end of 2019 to July 2021 and caused more than 4 million deaths worldwide (9).Computed Tomography (CT) scans are commonly used as a diagnostic tool in the emergency department.Findings that are common in the radiologist's interpretation of these scans, not related to the main complaint, and not related to emergency patient care are classified as "incidental findings (IFs)".Due to the widespread use and high resolution of multislice CTs, the rate of encountering IFs is increasing due to the fact that they reveal previously invisible structures and pathologies in detail.While radiologists focus on the main pathology, they may ignore other pathologies or findings in the cross-sectional area.