CASE REPORT   Free access

Journal of Radiological Review 2020 November-December;7(6):513-22

DOI: 10.23736/S2723-9284.20.00058-X

Copyright © 2020 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English, Italian

SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia: two of our case reports

Donato MASTRANTUONO ✉, Rita G. SPINELLI, Maria C. DOTTO, Domenico MARTORANO

Division of Radiology, Department of Diagnostic Imaging and Radiotherapy, C.T.O. Hospital, Città della Salute e della Scienza, Turin, Italy

The coronavirus 2019 (nCoV-19), RNA virus, is responsible for the 2019-20 pandemic. The high infectivity estimated by the World Health Organization (WHO) with R0 between 1.4 and 3.8, meant that the infection spread rapidly throughout the world, including Italy. Even our hospital, C.T.O. of Turin, headquarters of the second level DEA, soon had to organize itself to be able to host nCoV-19 cases, complying with the emergency on the territory with suitable routes and spaces. The disease’s severity is mainly related to pneumonia which, in severe cases, entails hospitalization in resuscitation units. Timely diagnosis of nCoV-19 cases is important to speed up treatment, improving prognosis and promoting early isolation of patients on whom the containment of the spread of this disease depends. From the imaging point of view, the novel coronavirus of 2019 manifests itself at the lung level with a characteristic but not specific CT pattern, useful for the radiologist to raise suspicion for a diagnosis that within a path made of clinical data-amnestical and laboratory, must occur as early as possible. Our Radiodiagnostics Unit, aware of the responsibility of its work in this context, wanted to make its contribution by reporting two interesting cases of nCoV-19 with the aim of enriching with data the literature and familiarizing radiologists and clinical teams with the imaging manifestations of this new infectious outbreak.

KEY WORDS: Coronavirus, COVID-19; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; Pneumonia, viral