Background: COVID-19 has become a national and an international preoccupation to all doctors. Dealing with patients with clinical suspicion of COVID-19 is a daily markedly growing professional issue for radiologists. The number of COVID-19 cases we deal with is peaking since last March and so is our experience in recognizing the disease patterns and in assessing its severity. The purpose of this study is to assess the role of CT chest in the diagnosis of COVID-19 based on our experience with 220 Egyptian cases. Results: A cross-sectional multicenter study involving 220 patients; 68 (30.9%) females and 152 (69.1%) males, their age range was 10-92 years (average 49.198 years). Non-contrast MSCT chest was done to patients with clinically suspected COVID-19. Data assessment and analysis for lesions probability, pattern, localization, and severity were done. Bilateral affection was seen in 168/220 cases (76.36%). Multilobar affection was noted in 186/220 cases (84.54%). Lower lobes affection was noted in 179/220 cases (81.36%). Peripheral/subpleural affection was noted in 203/220 cases (92.27%). The common CT patterns (ground-glass opacities, consolidation, crazy paving, vascular thickening, traction bronchiectasis, vacuolar sign, architectural distortion signs, and reversed halo sign) and the uncommon CT patterns (halo sign, masses, nodules, lobar affection, tree in-bud-pattern and cysts) were discussed. Associated extrapulmonary lesions described. Temporal changes, severity scoring, reporting, and possible pitfalls were all assessed. Conclusion: In our experience, CT plays a basic essential role in diagnosing COVID-19 in the current declared pandemic.
Background
Systemic sclerosis is a connective tissue disease that affects multiple systems and causes fibrosis of the skin and internal organs. There are two ways in which the lungs can be involved in patients with systemic sclerosis, either isolated pulmonary hypertension or interstitial lung fibrosis. The purpose of this study is to correlate the high resolution CT findings with pulmonary function tests in patients with systemic sclerosis to evaluate the severity of lung changes.
Results
Significant inverse correlations were found between the maximal extent radiological score, maximal severity radiological score as well as total (global) radiological score on one hand and the pulmonary function tests on the other hand
Conclusion
The combination of high resolution CT and pulmonary function tests are recommended for better assessment of the extent and severity of systemic sclerosis associated interstitial lung disease.
Background
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) plays an important role in the differentiation of hepatic focal lesions and diagnosis of hepatic malignancy, especially hepatocellular carcinoma which is a major health problem worldwide. Diffusion imaging is a functional MRI technique that became an essential part of MRI study of the liver. Recently, diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is diffusion variant that can provide more information than conventional diffusion imaging based on the tissue anisotropy. The aim of this study was to present the role of DTI in the assessment and differentiation between hepatic focal lesions.
Results
Fifty-one patients having 95 hepatic focal lesions who underwent dynamic MRI with conventional diffusion imaging and DTI acquisition were included in the study. A positive moderate significant correlation was found between Fractional anisotropy (FA) values and Liver Imaging Reporting and Data System (LI-RADS) category while substantial negative significant correlation and moderate negative significant correlation were found between DTI-ADC and DWI-ADC values, respectively, with the LI-RADS category. There was a significant negative correlation between DTI-ADC and FA values. DTI-ADC showed a significant role in differentiation of benign from malignant lesions with cut-off value 0.905 × 10−3 having 88.7% sensitivity and 88.3% specificity compared to 78.5% and 68.7% for DWI-ADC, respectively. Also, it was found that FA value had a significant role in differentiation between benign and malignant lesions with cut-off value 0.34 having 87.1% sensitivity and 73.9% specificity.
Conclusions
DTI can be included in liver MRI studies for better tissue characterization as it may perform better than conventional DWI with higher sensitivity and specificity of DTI-ADC and FA values than conventional DWI-ADC.
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