Background: The COVID-19 pandemic had affected population health throughout the world. Few studies had focused on post-COVID19 complications detection using multi-slice CT scans. Our trial aimed to assess the value of cardiac CT utility during the COVID-19 pandemic for the detection of cardiac complications and correlation with the severity scoring system for chest manifestations. Since the beginning of COVID-19 outbreak, cardiac computed tomography (CT) had a sudden increased value and use with a huge reduction in face-to-face patient care and elective diagnostic testing. This study started from May 2021 to April 2022 in a single cardiac CT centre. This prospective cohort trial was conducted on 40 patients proved to have COVID-19 infection by positive RT-PCR test for COVID-19 and/or CT chest manifestations. CT results were reviewed and compared to echocardiography and/or catheterization data. Results: In the CT severity score, the more severe score for COVID-19 infection was noted in cases with coronary artery occlusion and pulmonary embolic diseases. Meanwhile, the mild and moderate severity score groups developed myocarditis, pericarditis, and dilated cardiomyopathy, respectively, with statically significant differences with p-value= 0.007 for coronary artery disease (CAD) and 0.026 for pulmonary embolism. The significance of echocardiography examination was noted in cases with pericarditis and dilated cardiomyopathy, with p-value= 0.018 for pericarditis and 0.01 for dilated cardiomyopathy. Conclusions: MSCT is a very useful technique to for patients presenting with suspected post-COVID cardiac complications, in addition to severity scoring of chest involvement, also providing its correlation with the occurrence of cardiac complications.
Background Whole-body diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance is being developed as a tool for assessing tumor spread. Patients with known primary tumors require meticulous evaluation to assess metastasis for better staging; we attempted to detect bony metastasis without radiation exposure. Our study's goal was to use whole-body diffusion-weighted imaging with background body signal suppression (WB-DWBIS) to evaluate bony metastasis in confirmed patients who have primary tumors. Results Our study included 90 patients with known primary cancer, 10 patients were excluded as they had no bony metastasis, from 80 patients: 36 (45.0%) having one site of metastasis, 36 (45%) having two sites of metastasis, and 8 (10.0%) having three sites of metastasis. 56 (70.0%) of the metastasis sites were bony metastasis, and 76 were mixed both bony and non-bony, including 32(40.0%) lung, 16 (20.0%) liver, and 28 (35%) lymph nodes. Sensitivity of bone scanning in detecting metastasis was as follows: 95.1% sensitivity and 92.0% accuracy, while that of whole-body diffusion-weighted image with background signals suppression was 94.8% sensitivity and 91.7% accuracy, WB-DWBIS inter-observer agreement in the detection of bony metastatic deposits in cancer patients was good (0.7 45, agreement = 93.2%). Conclusions Using WB-DWBIS images, bone lesion identification and characterization (site and number) were improved, producing outcomes similar to bone scanning without the use of ionizing radiation.
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