Chest computed tomography in children with COVID-19 respiratory infection

Abstract

Background: Infection with COVID-19 is currently rare in children.

Objective: To describe chest CT findings in children with COVID-19.

Materials and methods: We studied children at a large tertiary-care hospital in China, during the period from 28 January 2019 to 8 February 2020, who had positive reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) for COVID-19. We recorded findings at any chest CT performed in the included children, along with core clinical observations.

Results: We included five children from 10 months to 6 years of age (mean 3.4 years). All had had at least one CT scan after admission. Three of these five had CT abnormality on the first CT scan (at 2 days, 4 days and 9 days, respectively, after onset of symptoms) in the form of patchy ground-glass opacities; all normalised during treatment.

Conclusion: Compared to reports in adults, we found similar but more modest lung abnormalities at CT in our small paediatric cohort.

Keywords: COVID-19; Child; Computed tomography; Coronavirus; Pneumonia; Viral.

Fig. 1

Axial non-enhanced chest CT in a boy age 1 year 5 months (Patient 1 in Table 1). a Four days after admission there is patchy ground-glass opacification (arrowheads) of the right upper lobe. b Five days subsequently, during antiviral treatment, the appearances have normalised

Fig. 2

Axial non-enhanced chest CT in a 4-year-old boy (Patient 4 in Table 1). a Two days after admission there is patchy ground-glass opacification (arrowheads) of the left lower lobe. b Five days subsequently, during symptomatic and supportive treatment, the appearances have normalised

Fig. 3

Axial non-enhanced chest CT in a 3-year-old boy (Patient 3 in Table 1). a Nine days after onset of symptoms, there is patchy ground-glass opacification (arrowheads) in the left lower lobe. b Seven days subsequently, during antiviral treatment, the appearances have normalised