Coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) is a viral pandemic that started in China and has rapidly expanded worldwide. Typical clinical manifestations include fever, cough and dyspnea after an incubation period of 2-14 days. The diagnosis is based on RT-PCR test through a nasopharyngeal swab. Because of the pulmonary tropism of the virus, pneumonia is often encountered in symptomatic patients. Here, we review the pertinent clinical findings and the current published data describing chest CT findings in COVID-19 pneumonia, the diagnostic performance of CT for diagnosis, including differential diagnosis, as well the evolving role of imaging in this disease. 2. Clinical presentation of COVID-19 COVID-19 can affect all ages; however, the reported median age is lower in the largest Chinese series (47y) [6] compared to the largest American series (63y) [7], with less propensity to affect children (2% of patients were below age 19 in the largest series of 44,672 confirmed cases in China [8]). Asymptomatic cases represent approximately 1% of cases, and can contaminate people around them [8]. Men are overrepresented in COVID-19 cohorts, including in severe cases in series from China (58 %-73 % of the cohorts, 58 %-85 % of severe cases) [6,9] and the US (60.3 % of the largest US cohort, 66.5 % of patients admitted in ICU) [7]. Most people who contract COVID-19 experience mild symptoms and recover without specific treatment. The typical incubation period ranges between 2-7 days, but can be as long as two weeks. The most common symptoms include fever (reported between 43.8 %-98 %), cough (67.8 %-76 %), headache, malaise, myalgia, and dyspnea [6,9,10]. Gastrointestinal symptoms such as abdominal pain and diarrhea have been less frequently reported [6,10-13]. Anosmia and ageusia have also been recently described [14,15]. Several biologic findings have been reported: lymphopenia, elevated inflammatory indices such as C-reactive protein (CRP), D-dimer, procalcitonin and ferritin, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and interleukin-6 (IL-6); IL-6 in particular may identify cases with poor
Ga-68 Prostate-Specific Membrane Antigen PET/CT is a new tool for the assessment of prostate cancer. Standard imaging time is 60 minutes post injection of radiotracer. At 60 minutes, there is physiologic accumulation of radiotracer in the urinary bladder which may cause some lesions in its vicinity to be obscured. Our aim is to determine if early imaging at 3 minutes in addition to standard imaging at 60 minutes can improve the detection of PSMA-avid lesions. A retrospective review of 167 consecutive patients was conducted. Overall, 115 patients (68.9%) were ruled to have prostate cancer based on imaging as seen on early or standard PET/CT images. In 106/115 (64%), the lesions were detected on both early and standard imaging; in 8/115 (6.9%), the lesions were only detected on early imaging; in 1/115 (0.6%) the lesion was detected only on standard imaging. The addition of early imaging significantly improved the overall detection rate of PSMA-avid lesions (p = 0.039). The ratio of patients with lesions detected on early imaging but not on standard imaging in restaging group was 7/88 and was higher than that in staging group 1/79 (p = 0.043). We recommend early imaging in addition to the standard imaging in Ga-68 PSMA PET/CT, particularly in patients presenting for restaging of prostate cancer. Prostate cancer is the fourth most common cancer globally with an estimated incidence of 1.6 million cases per year, leading to an estimated 366 thousand deaths 1. It is also the cause of the second most common cancer associated mortality in the United States, second to lung and bronchial cancers, and just ahead of colorectal cancer 2. The standard protocol for treatment of prostate cancer most often involves prostatectomy or radiotherapy. Nonetheless, biochemical recurrence as defined by an increase in post-therapy PSA level has been found in up to 28% of patients at 5 years post radical prostatectomy 3-6. With such substantial burden of disease, development of newer and more accurate imaging techniques and modalities for prostate cancer is of paramount importance to allow for more accurate staging and restaging of the disease. Imaging modalities for prostate cancer primary disease, recurrence or metastasis have traditionally included CT, MRI and bone scintigraphy. Newer modalities for diagnosis and staging have also been used. These include PET scan with fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) or choline based radiotracers. A newer class of radiotracers of great potential in target imaging of prostate cancer are prostate specific membrane antigen (PSMA) inhibitors. They target PSMA, a transmembrane protein whose expression is increased up to 1000-folds in prostatic cancer cells 7. PSMA inhibitors are most commonly coupled with 68-Gallium isotope and used in the radiotracer 68Ga-PSMA-HBED-CC for PET/CT and PET/MRI. The role of PET/CT imaging with 68Ga-PSMA is being evaluated in staging and restaging of prostate cancer. Studies by Sachpekidis et al. have demonstrated an overall detection rate of 96% in patients with primary prostate cancer...
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